


Livewire

by LikeMmmCookies



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Rebelcaptain - Freeform, slow burn kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-09-09 22:43:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 27,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8916019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LikeMmmCookies/pseuds/LikeMmmCookies
Summary: Jyn and Cassian share a kiss in the elevator, certain they won't survive. But then they do. She's quick to write off the kiss as the act of two desperate people facing death, but Cassian knows there's more to it. Jyn knows he's right, but after all she's lost, she's terrified to let someone in. He once told her "welcome home," and soon she learns what that feels like. Home feels like Cassian.





	1. Chapter 1

The doors closed behind them and the elevator dropped. Light illuminated Cassian from behind, casting his face in greys and browns. He wavered and Jyn braced him with a strong arm. He leaned into her strength, grateful for it. She stared into his eyes and their breaths caught. His pain ebbed away. In her celadon green stare, he heard all the words she wanted to say.

_We did it. You saved me. We did it._

She said.

_We did it. I couldn’t live without you. We did it._

He answered.

His eyes were the color of the earth, of life. They were the color that stained her fingers when she helped her father on their homestead as a girl. They were the color of their new fields, ready for seeds, ready to grow into something beautiful. They were the color of home. She wanted to wake up every morning to that color.

She knew they weren’t going to make it off the planet alive. Every second the elevator dropped brought them closer to their graves.

Even weak and wounded and shaking, his body felt alive against hers. She could feel his heart pounding in their silence, the rhythm was music in her limbs. She wondered what it felt like to listen to the sound with her ear to his ribs.

His hair curled over his ears, wild and thoughtless. She wondered what it felt like to have his hair in her fingers.

His lips curled in the ghost of a smile, the smile that followed her around at every turn, the smile she swore he wore only for her. She wondered what it felt like to have that smile against hers.

The elevator fell, the ground grew closer. Time was running out. There were so many things about him she would never know. But they had time to learn one last thing. Jyn brought her lips to his.

His touch ignited her. She burned hotter than their bodies were about to be as they were scorched away by the unholy power of the Death Star. His hands clutched hungrily at her hips, dragging her closer, and when he wound his arms around her, closer still. His fingertips left her molten everywhere they moved – across her jaw, through her hair, at the base of her spine.

Jyn forgot the elevator. She forgot the Death Star hanging in the horizon. She forgot their mission. There was only Cassian and her, melting together.

The elevator jolted to a stop and they separated with a gasp. The doors hissed open and blinding sunlight poured in. She stared through the doorway with a question. How does one greet death?

Cassian sagged against her, a reminder of his waning strength. She twined her arm around his waist and they stepped into the sun together.

“Get in!” Cried a desperate voice. They both jumped, heads whipping towards the sound of the cry and a whining engine. A small Rebel ship hovered inches from the ground, its docking ramp still open. A Rebel soldier stood at the base, motioning wildly to them.

Jyn grasped Cassian’s shirt with stunned fingers and he covered her hand with her own.

“We’re going to make it out of here,” he said, looking at her. His wide brown eyes searched hers.

They ran for the ship together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is going to be a short fic, I swear. But Rogue One big time fucked me up and I just can't get these two out of my head.


	2. Chapter 2

The ship was made for three or less people, and now there were six. The pilot and co-pilot were preoccupied with getting the damaged craft into the air, dodging rubble and the land. Like on Jedha, the earth rose upwards, fracturing apart like a puzzle in reverse. Jyn tried not to think of Saw coming apart the way the ground was right now.

Hot liquid seeped onto Jyn’s arm from Cassian’s wound. “I need a bacta patch!”

The soldier that had motioned them in threw her a medpac without barely glancing up, his own hands full with another wounded soldier.

Jyn shifted Cassian in her arms, propping him up between her legs. She ripped open his shirt, gaze flickering to his ashen face. His eyes fluttered shut. She dropped the supplies, hands flying to his cheeks. “Cassian! Cassian stay with me!”

His breathing was too shallow. Jyn grabbed the supplies and went to work with shaking hands, moving twice as fast. When he was bandaged up, she grabbed his face again. His eyes barely moved beneath closed lids. “Cassian!” she begged around her tightening throat. “Please, please. Open your eyes.” She rested her forehead against his collarbone, hanging onto the sound of his weak pulse. “Please,” she whispered. Nothing.

Then he moaned. Her head snapped up. “What? What’s wrong?”

“This is my favorite shirt,” he grumbled, his half opened eyes tracking her frightened face.

“You absolute –“ she cut off with a sniffling, strangled laugh. His ghost smile returned. He rested a hand on her knee.

“What about your leg?”

“It’ll survive,” she smiled at him. He left his hand there.

“We’ll be at Yavin 4 in a few minutes,” the co-pilot informed them, glancing at their tangled limbs. Jyn straightened, snatching her hand from where it rested against his shoulder, straightening her leg. Cassian cast her slanted glances while she surreptitiously wiggled away, leaning him against the wall instead of her. Her cheeks warmed.

“How did you know we were there?” she called to the cockpit.

“We saw you two on the top of the comm tower. Thought you would probably want a ride.” Jyn cast him a grateful smile he didn’t see.

Jyn practically carried Cassian to the med bay. Overwhelmed with wounded as it was, the base still looked empty. Gaping holes served as the docking stations for ships that would never come back. Despite his bravado she knew he was suffering. The medic’s face was solemn as he worked on Cassian.

“I want to keep him over night,” he told her.

Jyn stared at Cassian’s closed eyes as he rested on a bed. “Can I stay here?”

The medic shook his head. “You’ll be in the way. Come back tomorrow morning.”

Jyn didn’t sleep. She paced in front of the med bay until an irritated assistant sent her away, saying she was making people anxious. So she paced the empty halls of the base, a limping ghost waiting for morning.

She was at the med bay before first light. She slipped in with a group of people delivering breakfast, trying to keep her head down and still check through cracked curtains for Cassian. The medic from before caught sight of her, coming after her with a slight scowl.

“Jyn!”

The sound of Cassian’s voice instantly soothed the raw tension that kept her up all night. She dashed through the curtain. His hand was in hers before she decided to reach for it.

“You look like you didn’t get any sleep.”

“I didn’t.”

His mouth twisted into a worried frown.

“He’s doing much better.”

Both their heads turned to the medic. He gave a resigned wave. “You can take him back to his quarters, if you want.”

“Yes,” Cassian immediately piped up. “Get me out of here.”

Jyn slipped her arm around his waist. It felt comfortingly familiar at this point.

“It smells like death,” Cassian said quietly as they left.

“What does?”

“The whole base.”

Guilt trickled through her, spilling onto her face.

“Don’t do that,” he said.

Her eyebrows went up.

“Don’t wonder why you survived and they didn’t.”

He squeezed her shoulder, pulling her closer. To her shock, she saw tears forming in his eyes. “They died for something they believed in. That’s all we can hope for.”

The walk back to his room was slow. Jyn didn’t mind.

His face was pinched again when they reached his tiny room. She helped him get comfortable on his narrow bed.

“Help me out of this,” he said, pulling at the shirt they’d given him in the med bay. “It’s scratchy.”

She carefully helped him slip out of it, one arm at a time. Her eyes widened she saw the layers of scars that decorated his taut upper body. But the deep bruises across his back scared her the most. She kept seeing him fall from the archive tower, bouncing off supports like a ragdoll tossed out a window.

“It looks worse than it is,” he assured her. She bunched his shirt in her hands. She didn’t believe him.

“I have to go,” she sighed regretfully. “The council wants to talk to me. I told them not until after I saw you.”

He looked disappointed. “Okay.”

“I’ll come back.”

“Help me up.”

“You need to rest.”

He inclined his head towards the refresher. She sighed but helped him limp to it, her hand lingering on his arm. She dropped it and started to leave.

“Jyn.” He always said her name insistently, asking for her to stop, look at him. Their gazes met and she leaned towards him, her body falling into orbit with his, two galaxies on a path to collision.

“We have to talk about what happened in the elevator.”

Her jaw tensed. “Why?”

“You kissed me.”

She fell into his dark eyes, skin pulsing, urging her to tell him the truth. To close the gap between them. Then she saw her mother, blaster shot through the heart. Her father, dying in her arms. Saw, telling her he would run no more. The faces of everyone she had ever dared to love, and the ways they left her. She grit her teeth and looked away. “I thought we were going to die. I was scared.”

He grasped her forearm, a force that traveled through her like a shockwave. “Look me in the eyes and say that.”

Her eyes met his. He searched them, always entranced by their jade and sepia shades, by the vibrancy spilling out of them. Her pupils were blown wide.

“I was scared. That’s it.”

She watched each word kill something small inside him. All the tiny hopes he grew were wilting, one by one. Her heart splintered.

Her eyes dropped to his lips for a second. He caught it. “That’s it,” he repeated.

She couldn’t force another lie out even if she wanted to. Jyn tilted her jaw, challenging him – begging him – to prove her wrong.

He leaned forward, lips brushing the shell of her ear. “I don’t believe you.” He stepped past her, disappearing into the refresher, leaving his scent behind, clinging to her skin. Clean sweat over standard-issue soap, machine oil, and something like water. He always smelled like cool water fresh from a pipe – metallic and cleansing.

She took a shaky breath. She wanted to call him back. Tell him she lied. Tell him she wasn’t scared when her lips had found his. She turned and left. The council would be wondering where she was. 


	3. Chapter 3

Mon Mothma and the other few councilors present gave Jyn solemn but heartfelt thanks.

“Thank you seems an empty phrase in light of what you and Captain Andor went through to get the plans to the Death Star.”

“And our friends,” Jyn added.

Mon paused. “Yes, of course. Their sacrifice will not be forgotten nor will it be in vain. Jyn, you’re a free woman.”

Jyn thought to how tantalizing those words seemed when the Alliance first offered her freedom in exchange for a meeting with Saw. They sounded empty now.

Mon broke through Jyn’s thoughts. “The Empire believes you, Captain Andor, and everyone involved in the ground assault died. If they find out you and Captain Andor survived, you will have galactic targets on your backs. You’re Galen Erso’s daughter, and you snatched the plans for the Death Star right out from under their noses.”

Jyn didn’t like the direction this was going. “Krennic was the only one who knew why we wanted those plans. And he’s dead.”

“True, but the symbolism of your survival still stands. Consider disappearing into the outer rim, at least for a while.”

Jyn looked at her sharply. “You want me to leave?”

Mon tilted her head a fraction. “I thought you would want your freedom.”

“I do. I have it.”

Mon exchanged glances with the other council members.

“Cass – Captain Andor won’t leave,” Jyn stated.

Mon was serene as usual, but Jyn noticed the way her eyes narrowed slightly and she leaned towards Jyn, watching her closely now.

“No, he won’t.”

“Then I’ll stay.”

A small smile played at the corner of Mon’s lips. “We’re always happy to accept new recruits. You’re welcome here. I’m sure Captain Andor will be pleased.”

Senator Nower Jebel shot Mon a dark look, then transferred it to Jyn. She stared defiantly back at him.

“So what do we do next?” Jyn said.

“We?”

“Cassian and I.”

Mon’s smile widened for a split second. “Captain Andor is an Intelligence officer. Somehow I don’t think that would be a good fit for you. We have some minor missions in development, things that will allow you to keep a low profile for a while. The council will discuss which we think suits you best.”

“Cassian and I,” Jyn corrected her.

“Yes, suits you both.”

Nower Jebel was outright frowning.

“You are dismissed. Thank you, Jyn.”

Jyn stopped Mon. “What are we supposed to do until then?”

Mon nodded at Jyn’s leg. “Recover. Can you relay that order to Captain Andor for me?”

Jyn grimaced slightly but she nodded. She tried to keep up a quick pace as she walked away from the council members, covering her limp as much as possible.

She knocked on Cassian’s door to no response. She tried the handle, but it was locked. _Maybe he’s sleeping,_ she mused. She knocked harder, banging on the door until her fist stung. When a passerby cast her a suspicious look she huffed at no one in particular and went back to her quarters, trying to relax on her bed with a datapad she’d swiped from a supply locker.

She quickly became engrossed in her reading. Reading was one of the few things that quieted her mind, allowed her to shut out everything and everyone while she escaped into another world. She didn’t hear Cassian push her door open.

“Reading?”

She jumped, eyes flying to the doorway where Cassian leaned casually against the frame. She dropped the datapad onto her blankets. “You could knock.”

“You left the door open.”

He was inside her room now, pushing the door shut and reaching for her datapad. She grabbed for it, but the slim device was already in his hands.

“Political discourse of the blah, blah –  hmmm, what else do you have on here?”

“Give it back,” Jyn protested, grabbing again for the datapad while Cassian held it just out of reach. He flipped through her library.

“Mythology of the Galaxy, promising.”

She lunged for the pad again and he wrapped an arm around her, pinning her arms down. Even injured, his height gave him too much of an advantage. She half-heartedly squirmed against his arm.  

“Poems of Adranax?” His eyebrows went up as he gave her a teasing smile. “You like poetry.”

He leaned back onto her bed, pulling her with him. He began to read the first verse out loud. She stopped fighting him, limbs loosening.

“Why mourn for tomorrow in tears today,” he read. She relaxed, finding his lanky frame far too comfortable. And far too familiar. He shifted, tucking her against him, and read the rest of the poem. When he finished, he looked down at her. Her cheek rested against his chest, her eyes were shut. A lock of escaped hair fell over her brow. He gently swept it back with one finger and her eyes flew open. His eyes widened momentarily but his hand continued, gently combing through her hair.

“I thought you were asleep.”

“Just listening.” The barest hint of a rose stain crept into her cheeks. “I like the sound of your voice.”

“I’ll keep reading then.” But neither moved, save for Cassian’s fingers slowly stroking through Jyn’s loose hair, again and again. She let out a tiny sigh and her eyes fluttered shut. “That feels nice.”

He tugged at the band she used to pull her hair back into a small bun, gently pulling it loose. Another sigh escaped her as his fingers slipped deeper into her hair.

He could watch her all night, he thought to himself. Run his hands through her chestnut hair until they hurt. He spied a smattering of freckles along her shoulder that disappeared beneath her collar. His fingers ached to explore those golden constellations sketched across her skin.

He shifted, and she opened her eyes to find his face hovering at hers. _Don’t say anything,_ he warned himself. But the words still escaped.

“Are you scared now?”

She blinked, recoiling slightly. “What?”

“We’re not in danger. We aren’t facing death. And yet here you are.” He regretted his words even as he spoke them.

She scrambled out of her bed and cold air rushed into the space her body left behind. Anger flashed across her face.

“What exactly are you trying to do?”

Her question threw him. “I don’t understand.”

“You told me I’m not the only one who’s lost everything. So are you ready to give me everything you have left only to lose it again?”

He sat up on the edge of the bed, his smile long vanished. “You can’t know that’s what will happen.”

She drew closer, leaning down towards him. “I do,” her voice wavered with tightly held tears. “We got another chance yesterday. Someday one of us _will_ run out.”

His stomach dropped, sucking in his ribs with a pain that hurt more than the wound in his side. A part of him knew she was right. The other part rebelled.

They stared in a tense standoff. She was so close. He could reach out and wrap his arms around her waist, bury his face in her stomach, feel the warmth and safety of her body. She would cradle his head with her hands. She would kiss the top of his head. She would say the words he knew she had in her, the words she was fighting so fiercely to keep in.

“The council is going to give us a mission once we recover. Something low profile, just for now.”

He barely acknowledged the information, eyes on the ground. Then realization raced across his face and he looked at her. “You’re not leaving?”

Hurt crossed her face. “Of course not.”

Frustration simmered inside him. At her, but mostly at himself. He was so confrontational. Always pushing. Always pulling. And she was so stubborn.

He stood up. “The med bay commed me earlier. They have a free bacta tank. Want to get me patched up for good.” He stepped past her. She wouldn’t look at him.

Pausing at the door, he said in a near-whisper. “Everything I have left is already yours. You are everything I have left.”

Then he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the lovely people who write Wookieepedia articles about Star Wars poets.


	4. Chapter 4

That night, Jyn laid in bed for hours. Her body and mind ached with exhaustion, but sleep wouldn’t come. Impulsively, she slipped out of her room in only her long nightshirt. The warm jungle air of Yavin had cooled with the night, and a soft breeze stirred her hair as she paced halls with open windows.

Then she was standing in front of Cassian’s door, vaguely aware of even walking this direction. A sliver of light shone around the bottom.

The door swung open on the second knock, revealing a shirtless Cassian with mussed hair. Her cheeks bloomed pink. She realized his bruises were gone.

“I couldn’t sleep," she said, offering no other explanation. 

"Me either." His tiny smile appeared, a sight which was quickly becoming one of her favorites. He stood aside to let her in. She spied the glow of a datapad atop his bed, displaying text that looked very much like poetry.

“Reading?”

His smile widened. “You got me hooked on that poet.”

She crawled under his covers. “Read to me?”

His brown eyes softened, leaving her insides melted.

He got in next to her and she fit herself against his good side. His skin was hot against her and she almost wished he was wearing a shirt. She caught his gaze. A silent apology passed between them.

“I can’t give you what you want,” she whispered to him.

He watched her, sensing there was more.

She took a shaky breath. “But I’m here. Just please don’t,” she searched for a word. “Push,” she finished. Her eyes scanned his face for any traces of anger or hurt.

He kissed her forehead in response. His lips on her skin felt so dangerously perfect.

They made it through three verses between they were both sound asleep.

Jyn woke slowly the next morning, still tight against his side, their legs tangled. Her arm was cast across his chest, his hand over hers.

“I have to get up,” he murmured in her ear. She shivered. His voice turned innocent remarks into decadent phrases that left her tingling. He shifted, trying to sit up. She curled tighter around him. “No,” she sighed sleepily. “Stay here.”

Cassian froze, barely propped up on one elbow. “I have a meeting with some other Intelligence officers,” he protested, sounding almost agonized. Finally, Jyn sighed regretfully and rolled away. “Fine,” she said begrudgingly with a slight pout. Forcing himself to climb out of bed and walk to the refresher was one of the hardest things he'd ever done. 

 She heard the refresher door shut and snuggled back into the warmth of the blankets. She dozed, waking when the door opened. Cassian was standing by the bed, hair darker than usual, a towel tucked tightly around his hips. Her eyes strayed to his chest, where beads of water ran down his skin, trickling through the trail of hair just visible above the top of the towel. Her breath hitched, heart sputtering. She forced herself to look away, and caught sight of the chrono on the wall. She gasped when she saw the time. “Everyone’s going to be awake.” She looked down at her night shirt.

He leaned over, fingering the collar of the lightweight garment, the motion setting her heart fluttering again. “You can’t go out there in pajamas.” He didn’t bother to ask her why she was wandering the base without real clothing. _She probably just got up and left her room without a second thought,_ he laughed to himself.

He pulled open a drawer beneath the bed, frowning into the interior.

Jyn leaned over him, the ends of her loose hair tickling his bare shoulders. The scent of his freshly washed skin enveloped her. “What’s wrong?”

“I forgot my jacket on Scarif and someone ripped a giant hole in the side of my favorite shirt.” He looked up at her with a little smirk.

“I don’t know anything about that,” Jyn said with overdrawn seriousness.

“I lose a lot of jackets; I have extras.”

She peered into the drawer and saw three neatly folded jackets identical to his old one next to a couple non-descript shirts.

“You are a jacket hoarder,” she announced to him.

“Lucky for you,” he chuckled, handing her one of the jackets. She pulled it on, noting it smelled like him.

“How do I look?” She held out her arms for inspection. Her hair, slightly messy from sleep, framed her cheeks which held a light flush. Her nightshirt barely fell to mid-thigh, and the thin fabric hinted at her subtle curves that were normally buried under heavy-duty utility workwear. The sleeves of his jacket came too far, but the close-crop of the design hung attractively at her hips. Looking at her like this hurt. She was captivating.

He cleared his throat. “It looks...good.”

She looked slightly crestfallen but recovered quickly, adjusting the lapels and pulling the jacket tight around her. “It’s comfy.”

He gave her a crooked smile. “I’m not getting that back, am I?”

“Nope.” She grinned at him and his smile widened. She realized for the first time he had a dimple in one cheek that was deeper than the other and that his smile lit his eyes up like the mountains of Lah’mu at sunrise. A droplet of water fell from his bangs and splashed onto her shirt. She could feel the warmth of his skin. She didn’t remember moving so close to him. Her breath rushed out of her. It was too much.

She jerked back swiftly, running a nervous hand over the front of the jacket. “You’ll be late,” she said stiffly.

Cassian watched her, slightly dazed by the rapid change. “Uh, yeah.” He shook his head to restart his thoughts. “I should get dressed.”

She turned and his gaze snagged on her injured leg. He grabbed her wrist. “Jyn.”

Her heart jumped. There it was again – the way he said her name, like it was the most important word he knew.

“Yes?” She thought she sounded far too breathless.

“Please go to the med bay and have them take care of your leg.”

Her eyes hardened and he waited for her tiny scowl to appear. “My leg is fine.”

“Jyn,” he repeated. “Please.”

His dark earth eyes pulled the fight out of her. “Okay,” she sighed. One corner of his mouth turned up. She would go to the med bay as many times as he wanted for that smile.

Barely five steps past Cassian’s door, she nearly crashed into Senator Nower Jebel. His eyes bounced from her jacket to Cassian’s room and deep frown lines grew on his face. She scowled at him and stepped around.

“You should stay away from him,” came Nower’s voice from behind.

She spun, cheeks already burning. “Excuse me?”

Nower loomed over her with a sour look. “He was one of our best Intelligence officers. Brave, dedicated, loyal. _Obedient_.”

“He still is,” she growled.

“He barely knows you and already he’s disobeyed direct orders for you. Twice!”

“And the Alliance is better for it,” she said, glowering.

“This time, but you won’t always be able to say that. You’re dangerous. You’re a liability. You’re going to get him hurt.”

“Cassian is an intelligent, rational human who can make his own choices.”

“We both know that when it comes to you, that’s no longer true.”

Jyn’s clenched fists twitched.

“I know he made some other questionable decisions when you were around. He may not be disobeying direct orders, but you make him reckless. He takes unnecessary risks.”

“You can’t possibly know that,” she retorted.

“People talk,” he said with a leer.

She glared. “I find your preoccupation with Cassian’s decisions a little disturbing.”

His face grew red with anger. “We have very few officers like Captain Andor around. It’s in all of our best interests to protect him. Losing him to the cause is one thing, losing him because he turned into a fool over some girl is another.”

His audacity shocked Jyn. Her skin prickled with fury. “Are you seriously saying you’re going to make him choose?”

Nower arched an eyebrow. “He’s been fighting for this cause for almost 20 years. He’s known you for days. If he was forced to, there’s no question of what he would choose.”

“You don’t know him. You’re wrong,” Jyn said, her bluff rolling off her tongue like the truth.

Nower’s nostrils flared but he seemed unimpressed by her bold statement. “Your upcoming missions will be a test of Andor’s loyalties. I think he will fail. I’m going to recommend to Mon Mothma that you be accepted into a division of the military that places you very far from him.”

Her anger turned to confusion. “Military?”

Nower gave her a gloating smile. “You don’t really think they’ll just let you run off to whatever mission you want? If you join the Alliance, you have to become an officer. Take orders. Wear your actual badge and rank around on your own jacket.” He stared meaningfully at the patches on Cassian’s jacket.

Jyn’s mind scrambled for a comeback, but she was too busy thinking about everything she’d forgotten to think about.

Nower was already leaving. He sneered over his shoulder, leaving her speechless in the middle of the corridor.

Jyn showered very slowly, her mind turning over the Senator’s words again and again, fresh anger bubbling up every time she remembered how easily he assumed Cassian would pick the Alliance over her. She banged her head against the shower wall. This was insane, she shouldn’t even be thinking about what Cassian would choose. It didn’t matter, she reminded herself. The skeleton of a plan formed in her mind. She steeled herself, willing her own weakness to disappear. There would be no choice to be made, she decided. The thought left her hollow.

She hurried to the med bay, glancing over her shoulder every few seconds for Cassian. They directed her to a shallow bacta tank for her leg. She had to admit, her leg felt a thousand times better afterwards.

It took her too long to track down Mon Mothma. The older woman was surveying some data on glassy displays with a few other officers. She nodded to them as Jyn approached and they subtly disappeared. She gave Jyn a beatific smile.

“I’m going to take your advice,” Jyn told Mon with a tight smile.

Mon tilted her head in question.

“To disappear into the outer rim for a while. I want to leave as soon as possible.”

Mon’s smile slipped from her face. “Are you sure about this?”

“Yes,” Jyn forced out.

Mon took a step closer. “What about Cassian?” she asked softly.

Jyn swallowed tears. “He’s better off without me.”

Mon’s lips thinned. "It that you talking, or Senator Jebel?" 

Jyn somehow wasn't surprised Mon knew about Jebel. She looked away, but she didn’t say anything. 

Mon sighed. “There’s a cargo ship scheduled to leave in two hours.” Mon tapped on a display, keying in a few things. “There, you’re on the list now.”

“Where is it going?” Jyn asked. 

“Does it matter?” Mon replied with one raised eyebrow.

“No,” Jyn quietly admitted. “Thank you, for everything.”

Mon watched Jyn disappear with deep sadness that wasn’t felt for herself, but on the behalf of someone else.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for the lovely lovely lovely comments you leave me. I made a little playlist for this fic. Would anyone be interested in hearing it? 
> 
> you guys i'm so excited for the next chapter. it's going to kill me trying not to post it today. it'll be up by tomorrow mid-morning, for sure though! aaahhhh


	5. Chapter 5

Jyn was stripping the few items she had from a narrow closet and shoving them into a bag with the other meager supplies she'd tracked down, when someone knocked on her door.

She pulled it open to see Cassian standing before her, his face equal parts masked fury, pain, and something like desperation.

She stood aside wordlessly to let him. He stopped in the middle of her room, hands braced on his hips.

“You would leave without telling me.” Each of his words fell like a blow into her chest. She didn’t ask how he found out.

The last time she’d seen him like this was after she called him a Stormtrooper in the ship on Eadu. After he’d disobeyed direct orders to kill her father. After he rushed onto a burning landing pad crawling with Stormtroopers to save her even though the Alliance had no further use for her. For her. How many more times would he put himself needlessly in danger for her? Senator Jebel was right.

She looked directly at him, features stony. “I was going to say goodbye.”

“Don’t lie to me!” He spat at her through gritted teeth.

Jyn stared at him. She felt like she was standing on the very edge of a ravine, waiting for – daring – the slightest draft to push her over the edge. Or for the courage to jump.

He paced her tiny room, glaring at the walls, the floor, at her. Cassian liked to maintain an image of cool detachment, but he was full of keen intensity that often escaped. Now, it was alight and burning. The pressure in the room built until the air felt heavy. Jyn’s heart hammered unyieldingly in her chest, waiting for him to explode.

He growled. “You are so, so –“ He paced around her again. Cassian was not an easily flustered person. He wasn't a pacer, he wasn't a fidgeter. He was calm, reserved, each motion economical and intentional. She’d never seen him so agitated.

“Why are you doing this?” He demanded with an angry gesture.

Her voice came out small and unconvincing. “I can’t stay here. You know I won’t make it as an officer. I’m not a solider.”

"I don't believe you!" he growled, grabbing her shoulders angrily. “Why?” His grip turned pleading, sliding to her upper arms. “What can I do to make you stay?”

“My mind’s made up,” she whispered, voice wavering.

“Please, please don’t leave,” he begged, his voice laced with panic. The sound almost broke her. She felt a frantic need to fix it – to do whatever it took to remove that fear from his voice. She tipped her head back to look into his earth brown eyes and immediately wished she hadn’t. They spilled over with something she’d never seen in Cassian before. He was terrified.

“Please don’t leave me,” he said again. He rested his forehead against hers. He could feel her shaking, faltering. She was crumbling.

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to hold back the tears building at her lashes.

“I’ve been thinking,” he began softly. Her eyes flew open.

The honesty on his face set her heart racing. His gaze dragged over her features like a cornered animal searching for any possible way out.

“I’ve been thinking about all the things we have to be afraid of,” he continued.

Her breath hitched as she held back a sob. “Not such a long list,” she said with a broken, feeble smile.

His mouth slipped into the tiny half smile he always had ready for her. “We could be afraid of the Empire. Of death. We are not afraid of either of those. But there is one thing.”

The pace of her blood sounded like frantic drums in her ears. Her chest ached unbearably. Her words were breathless. “What are you afraid of?”

He dragged a lock of her hair between two fingers, just barely brushing her temple. Her breath caught, and he heard it. The tiny smile widened, climbing into his eyes and lighting them up.

“Living without you.”

Her breath stopped.

“We run into battles because we do not fear the Empire or death. But I think about a life where, every morning I wake up without you and every night I go to sleep without you and I can’t breathe.” He searched her eyes and she felt herself falling into them. He slipped his hands beneath her jaw, cradling her head.

“Cassian,” she softly gasped with an anguished twist to her voice. She grabbed his hands with her own. She didn’t know whether to pull them away or whether to hold on tighter. She searched for the right thing to say, the thing that would make him understand he had to let her go. But there was only the truth, shouting inside her. It escaped. “I’m afraid of losing you.”

“Yes,” he said with a splintered laugh. “I know, because you keep trying to run. But more than that, I know you are afraid of being without me too. Because when you thought you had nothing to lose and we wouldn’t survive, you kissed me. Our last moments would be together.”

Tears burned at the corners of her eyes.  “Everyone I’ve ever loved has died.”

His whole face shifted. He pulled her closer.

“Are you saying you love me?”

She couldn’t answer. Her hands squeezed tighter, her eyes locked with his. She thought of her parents. Her father watched her mother die. They had spent all their chances, but they had spent them together. And when she thought Cassian and she had spent theirs too and only minutes remained, she gave it all to him. She gave him everything she had left.

She blinked away her tears and plunged over the edge. “Yes,” she whispered. The word barely left her lips before Cassian was dragging her into his arms, his mouth crashing into hers.

He pulled her desperately to him, hands slipping through her hair, over her shoulders, clutching the back of her neck. She wanted to be closer.

She ripped off his clothing. He took his time with hers. Cassian moved languidly, wanting to pursue her every curve and rise with his strong hands. He spread lingering kisses along her jaw. She arched into his mouth as he worked down her neck, dragging his nose across her collarbone. His hands deftly unwound her banded brassiere and she sighed when his mouth sucked at the gentle swell of her breasts.

His mouth found hers again and he picked her up, carrying her to the bed without breaking away. He laid her back and they stared at each other, each breath picking up speed. Unspoken words flowed between them. She looked at him with completely unprotected trust in her eyes, the sight he’d been waiting to see before he realized it, the first second he saw her.

He remembered the exact second she came into his life. Guards walked her into the Alliance command room while he leaned against a console display, watching her with a skeptical expression. She was a criminal, she’d injured several officers while they tried to rescue her. She’d taken the chance to escape and she’d almost made it. She was a bomb with a short fuse and a calculating mind. Everything about her screamed defiance. The kind of attitude he couldn’t tolerate.

Then she’d looked at him and everything fell away. Her green eyes burned in the dimly lit room, sucking him in. She was a wild thing, full of rage. But under it all, he saw the desperate hope she caged and tried so hard to ignore. He knew, deep within, he would do anything to set that hope free.

But he had fought it. Stars, how he’d fought it. But he’d lost the fight quickly, and he’d never been so happy to lose.

Looking at her now, she couldn’t be more different than before.

He pulled off her pants one leg at a time, running his hands over the strength of her legs. Every stroke sent warm ripples into her core, igniting her.

He was too far away. She reached for him, winding her hands through his hair, drawing his lips back to hers. She dragged her fingernails across his scalp and he moaned softly into her. The vibrations buzzed deliciously through her and her body begged him to do it again.

She tugged at his pants, wanting everything off. She wanted nothing between them. He wiggled out of them and she thrilled at the feeling of only skin against skin. His erection pressed against her slit, already rousingly wet. He moaned again against her neck and Jyn tilted her hips into his, burning at his hardness.

His hands glided down her, adoring every inch. One hand skimmed between her legs. He plunged a finger into her and she let out a small gasp, rocking her hips, demanding more. He slipped another finger in, pumping against her tight walls. He slid a dripping finger to her clit, gently swirling them in tortuous circles. He urged her higher and higher while she writhed against him, digging her nails into his back, grabbing handfuls of his hair, biting into the perfect skin of his lower lip.

She panted with the overwhelming need to have him inside her. She grabbed his hips, fitting them against her. Her hand closed around his cock and he shuddered while she teased the head against her hot opening. Then she drove him inside her, gasping as he stretched her.

Cassian thought he would erupt with every groan and sigh Jyn breathed against him, whispering his name to him like a prayer. Her fingers left electrifying trails along his body. Her legs, wrapped around his back, urged him harder and deeper. He sucked in the scent of her skin, vaguely floral, spicy, and with a musk driven by her radiating desire.

The way he thrust into her, slowly, circling his hips to feel every inch of her around him, drove Jyn closer and closer to the edge. She reached over her head, bunching the sheets in her desperate fingers. He traced the insides of her arms with his hands, finally weaving his fingers between hers. They locked gazes, gasping, their lips brushing every time he sank into her again. No one had ever looked at her like Cassian did. Like she was the sun, necessary to everything. Like he would be utterly lost without her. And she looked back.

Jyn unfurled, everything inside her reaching for him, wanting him, needing him. He gasped her name and she cried out, shattering beneath his body. She fluttered around his cock, clenching, demanding he come. He shuddered, repeating her name over and over again while he released himself into her.

She latched onto him, pinning his body in place. He kissed her deeply, relishing the feel of their bodies quivering against each other, of being completely and utterly together.

“I love you,” he murmured between kisses. “I would do anything for you.”

She sighed at his every word, a pain and tension she didn’t even know she carried flowing out of her. He said it again, the words healing all the ragged holes her past had left her with.

They laid in contented silence for a while. Cassian traced invisible patterns across her skin, pressing kisses to her forehead or hair every so often.

“I don’t worry about you fighting for the Alliance,” he told her. She tightened her arms around him.

“Why not?”

“There are many divisions. We will find one that fits you.”

“What about you?”

“We will find one that fits us both.”

She glanced up at him. “You would do that for me?”

He answered her with a long kiss.

She looked at the chrono on her shelf. “The ship I was going to take left five minutes ago,” she said, smiling at him. She sighed and her eyes fluttered shut. “It was a pointless move. If I did leave I would just be miserable.”

He gazed at her so wonderingly, like he wasn’t quite sure the moment was real. He smiled crookedly. “You know if you run away I’ll just come after you.”

“You really think you could find me? I’ve been on the run for years. I’m very good at it,” she said with slight pride.

“I found you once already. I’ll do it again, and again. I'll always find you.”

She caressed his cheek. Her chest tumbled with impossible words, phrases of adoration, promises. They felt too young, too naked to say out loud just yet. “You’re stuck with me now,” she smirked.

He laughed and kissed her cheek. “Good.” He gave her a strange smile. “Mon Mothma told me she had a mission for us both, just minutes before I found out you were leaving.”

Jyn tipped her head to one side. “She wasn’t the one who told you?” Cassian shook his head. She scrunched her nose. “But she was the one who told me about the ship I could take off Yavin.”

Cassian blinked at her and Jyn started laughing. “She didn’t think for a second I would actually leave. Is there anything she doesn’t know?”

Cassian smirked. “Maybe she’s secretly a Jedi. Should we go find out about the mission?”

Jyn sighed heavily and plunked her head down on his chest. “Five more minutes.”

He ran a hand through her hair, continuing down the curve of her spine. Jyn shivered, pulling his lips to her. Their kisses intensified, and Cassian pulled her atop of him. She straddled him, rocking her hips against his insistently, against his already hard cock. They did not leave after five minutes.

Cassian commed an officer to set up a meeting, and then they took far too long to reach the command room. Her pulled Jyn into every corner and alcove, carding his hands through her silky hair while showering her with kisses. She giggled and happily obliged, pushing each kiss to an almost unbearable point. Cassian wished desperately they had never left his room.

They reached the command room with hair in disarray and blushing faces, stumbling into the room slightly out of breath.  Jyn slyly reached over and squeezed his ass. Shocked, Cassian tripped over a crack in the floor and Jyn struggled not to break out in laughter. She felt giddy, untethered. He shot an appalled look at her over his shoulder. Mon watched them with a decidedly satisfied expression.

The mission turned out to be significantly tamer than either of them expected. It was fairly unstructured reconnaissance and intelligence gathering in a large city that had recently seen an increase in the presence of Imperial troops for no apparent reason. They were to find out as much as possible without compromising their identities and check in with the Alliance contacts in the city. Mon wanted them to leave early the next morning. Jyn knew this would be her first test. Senator Jebel would no doubt pick it apart, looking for any sign, any flaw, that Jyn was a risk and unfit to work with Cassian.

Cassian listened intently to the briefing, occasionally taking notes on his datapad about the landscape or recent events. He requested maps, demographics, and a long list of other information. Although she feigned an attentive expression, she wasn’t paying attention to his discussion with another Intelligence officer, she was watching Cassian. She could see why he was such a trusted and respected spy. He asked question after question that revealed his sharply calculating thoughts and keen intelligence. But the actual details turned into a hazy drone in Jyn’s head. She wasn’t particularly interested in the backstory of every building and citizen of the city. She just wanted to get on the ground and suss out the situation as they went. She wasn’t sure if that meant she would be a good counterpart to Cassian’s need to over-prepare, or if it meant she would drag him down.

Suddenly three scanner techs burst into the room. They were panting, frantic, and pale. Everyone at the table rose from their seats.

“Mon Mothma!” The first tech shouted at her. They all started talking at once, blabbering incoherently about scanner gaps and Imperial transmissions.

“Silence! Please!” Mon said. She barely raised her voice but they fell quiet. “What is it?” she asked the first technician.

He wrung his hands. “Alderaan. It’s gone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two things. 1. I listened to Blush by Violents on repeat while writing this chapter. 2. I'll be taking a little break to celebrate christmas with my family and spend time with the most bad ass incredible woman in the world (my aunt). I'm hoping to post chapter 6 on Tuesday or Wednesday. 
> 
> If christmas is your thing, then merry christmas to you! If it's not, then have a lovely weekend! :) :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In loving memory of Carrie Fisher. 
> 
> She was (and will continue to be) an incredible inspiration to us all. She taught us to think bigger, talk louder, and stop apologizing for who we are. The fact that she was so open about being bipolar is an incredible and cherished thing to me. I'm bipolar, and I tend to keep it to myself, until people start asking questions. I struggled to explain what it's like to live with bipolar. To have a disorder that is both separately something happening in your brain but also an integral part of your identity. She gave me the words to explain it. I know a lot of other people feel that way too. 
> 
> She doesn't just leave behind a legacy, she lives on in our memories and hearts, in our very lives. When I think about monumental figures in history who changed the world, I put Carrie on that list. She changed the narrative of female characters in media and transformed generations of women's lives simply by being herself. 
> 
> My heart breaks for her friends and family. Keep them in your prayers. I know a lot of you are suffering; you'll be in my prayers too. Don't be afraid to cry and mourn. Maybe the Force be with you.

* * *

A stunned silence fell over the room.

Jyn’s gaze raced to Cassian’s. “They’ve done it,” she breathed. “They used the Death Star on a whole planet.”

“We don’t know how long Alderaan has been gone. We just started to notice there was a huge drop in the amount of transmissions crossing our scanners.”

“It gets worse,” another tech said, blinking back tears. The room seemed to grow smaller. Jyn couldn’t imagine anything worse.

“Imperial transmissions confirm that the Tantiv IV was destroyed. The plans to the Death Star are gone.” 

Jyn didn’t realize her hand was in Cassian’s until his grip became painful.

Mon leaned over the table with a defeated slump. “How sure are you of the Tantiv’s destruction?”

The techs exchanged glances. “We haven’t received any communications from them in several hours and then we intercepted and decoded transmissions which indicated the Empire destroyed it. They’re planning to announce it to the Senate.”

Mon bowed her head. “We’ll assemble an emergency council meeting in three hours, give as many people as possible time to get here. We’ll make a decision then. Get into contact with as many council members as possible. I want everyone to be here. Dismissed.”

“Mon,” Jyn said insistently, “please give us something to do until then.”

“I said dismissed,” she sharply repeated. Cassian tugged on Jyn’s hand. “Let it go,” he whispered into her ear. She let him lead her away.

They walked tiredly back to Cassian’s room where they sat quietly next to each other on the edge of his bed. With an impatient sigh, she yanked off her boots and dumped them in a pile on the floor, scooching backwards to lean against a pillow. She shoved up her pant leg and began rubbing at a sore knot in her leg, an unwelcome leftover from her injuries.

Cassian shifted, lightly placing his hands over hers and tugging them off her leg. He pulled her foot into his lap. His wide hands traveled up her leg with soothing pressure, his long-boned fingers carefully probing for the tightest spots. The pressure increased, every lap his hands made from her knee to ankle was more soothing than the last. His gaze traveled to her face and the darkness brewing in his eyes set an ache in her heart. She let him speak in his own time.

“It was for nothing.” His voice was empty. His eyes narrowed on the repetitive motions of his hands, up and down her leg.

She remembered the hope shining from his face when he volunteered to go to Scarif. The hope all the volunteers shone with. Scarif was their final stake and especially Cassian’s. The promise of redemption, the justification for the things that left smoldering charcoal scars in their hearts.

“It was all for nothing,” he repeated.

Jyn reached, pulling him into her arms and he leaned into the curve of her neck. She didn’t offer consolations. A life of disappointment taught her there were no words that could fix the past. And words weren’t her strongest point anyways.

Cassian’s silent tears pooled at the dip of her collarbone. The Alliance asked him to kill a man while he worked side by side with his daughter. To look into her eyes and tell her they were working to save him, all the while knowing he would pull the trigger. She didn’t want know what other things they had ordered him to do. So she offered him the strongest thing she had – the strength of her arms around his.

Jyn couldn’t do what Cassian was doing right now. She couldn’t think about her father’s sacrifice. His mind and his research had become his prison, and he stayed there to build a way for others to escape the prison the Death Star would create. A prison where the whole galaxy was enslaved to the Empire. All the sacrifices of the rebels had culminated in the plans to the Death Star _they_ had rescued. And even that last slender fragment of possible victory was gone. She couldn’t think about it. She couldn’t. She held the thoughts down in shallow water and drowned them, feeling the struggle reverberate through her like a physical thing. It numbed her.

* * *

 

Mon Mothma had plans to assemble, data to look at, people to talk to, and a speech to prepare, but first she had do something else. Something that both made her skin crawl with its wrongness and filled her chest with a sharply painful hope. She commed Cassian and Jyn, asking them to meet her in her offices, fully realizing she had just sent them away. She had been angry. She teetered on the brink of shattering into despair.

They arrived in silence. The tension in the air felt like metal in winter against their skin. Jyn seemed almost comatose, except for the frequent tremble of her chin and the way she braced her body, as if struggling against an invisible foe. Cassian, on the other hand, was alert, his eyes hardened and fixed forwards. He seemed calm enough. Mon studied him closer. No, not calm she amended, brittle. She questioned the wisdom of picking them for this mission, wondering if it was best to leave them in peace.

“I’m sending you to Gamma base on Hoth.” Mon took a deep breath. “The Alliance will disband and scatter its forces. I know that’s what will be decided at the emergency meeting. We have to consider the possibility that the Tantiv IV or its passengers were captured before destruction. I want us to be ready to leave Yavin 4.”

Cassian’s eyebrows went up. “Why do you need to send us in person for that?”

Mon’s lips thinned. “There is another reason. The base on Tatooine was discovered and destroyed by Imperial forces. A handful of our own escaped. One of them claims she overheard an officer talking about ‘finding the plans.’”

Cassian froze. His voice was hard. “What do you mean? There is a chance someone escaped to Tatooine with the Death Star plans?”

Mon glanced at Jyn, who swayed in numb silence. “I believe that is a possibility. I want you to talk to the officer and see what you can glean. See if there’s any trail you can pick up.”

Jyn fought it, but her chest fluttered with hope, rising like a bird. Cassian turned to her. The golden sunlight streaming through Mon’s office window flooded his eyes, lighting them like tiger’s eye stones. She could see the hope unfolding within him too.

“Okay,” Cassian told Mon. “We’ll go.”

“I’m sending a pilot with you. He’s young, but he’s the only one we can spare right now. He also has some experience with Gamma base and supply administration. He’ll be able to pull together a quick report on the readiness of the base.”

Jyn spoke for the first time. “Does he have any actual field experience?”

Mon winced slightly. “Not really. But he’s at the top of his peer group in flight training. He’ll do fine.” There was a frail knock at Mon’s door. “That should be him,” she said, reaching for the door.

‘Young’ didn’t really cover it. The boy was barely taller than Jyn, with a wiry frame and fine features. He looked like he would fall over if Jyn talked too loudly. He had a modest blaster strapped to one bony hip that looked painfully out of place. She wondered if he’d ever even used it. She and Cassian exchanged a dismayed look.

“H – hi,” the boy said, his greeting almost a question. Mon waved him in. “This is Helix Adryn. Helix, this is Captain Cassian Andor and Jyn Erso.”

Jyn thought the boy’s name couldn’t be more incongruous with his appearace. She turned to Mon. “Seriously? How old is he?”

The boy winced at Jyn’s tone. “I’m 15,” he answered, his voice like a soft rustle. Cassian felt a pang. He remembered being 15. Skinny as a stick, desperate to prove himself. Checking every day for the facial hair he was positive would help him look more like a man and less like a child. Constantly overlooked, questioned at every turn. People’s eyes slid over him in a crowd. But it had made him faster, sharper, more cunning than others his age. All the things he used to hate about himself were the things which shaped him into the capable Intelligence officer he was today. Still, he remembered the struggle and the loneliness. He held out his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Helix.”

The boy’s bones felt bird-like in his hand, but his grip was surprisingly strong. Helix dipped his head, mumbling what sounded like “you as well.”

Jyn was still staring at Helix with a frosty gaze. She also remembered being 15. By that age, she was an experienced fighter with a tangible fury and the gritty memories to match. People stepped softly when she passed. Her distaste for Helix was obvious.

“Let’s gear up,” she said to Cassian, ignoring Helix. “I want to get going.” With a nod to Mon Mothma, she strode out of the room. Cassian and Helix followed more slowly. Helix let out a long, shaky breath, staring after Jyn with a slightly dazed expression.

“That’s Jyn Erso,” he said with a hint of awe. He looked up at Cassian. “And you’re Captain Andor.” He ran a hand through his floppy brown hair. “I was there when she gave that speech to the council. This is surreal.”

Cassian smiled to himself. “Don’t let Jyn scare you. I know she looks tough.” Helix waited for him to finish his statement but Cassian didn’t continue.

“And? Are you going to tell me she isn’t a tough as she looks?”

“Nope. She is and more. But don’t let her push you around. She respects the people who push back. If you have something to say, say it. Especially if you don’t agree with her.”

Helix looked like he might faint. “Right. Argue with Jyn Erso. Got it.” One corner of his mouth turned up. “Do I get a jacket?”

Cassian looked down at his jacket, perplexed. Then he realized Jyn was still wearing the matching jacket he gave her. “Maybe later,” he smiled.

They’d reached the hangar. “You’ll be fine,” Cassian reassured him. Where’s your ship?”

Helix pointed down a row at a small scout ship. It was an old model and showed signs of multiple repairs, but it was immaculately kept. Clearly, it had a pilot who cared. Cassian spied Jyn across the hangar carrying several bulging bags with ease. She dumped them at their feet when she reached them. “Is this our ship?”

“Helix’s ship,” Cassian corrected her. “Are you ready for your first real mission as a military pilot?”

Her eyebrows shot up. “You mean co-pilot,” she corrected Cassian. He nodding encouragingly to Helix.

Helix consciously squared his shoulders. “It’s my ship. I’m the pilot.” Jyn fixed another icy stare on him for a second, but didn’t reply, hoisting a bag and boarding the ship without comment.

Helix wilted with relief and turned to Cassian, who nodded approvingly at him.

Inside the vessel, Jyn plopped down on a passenger seat, silently fuming at Mon. She couldn’t believe she’d send such a timid little puppy as their pilot. She watched Helix start the external check and blinked as he transformed before her eyes. He slipped around the ship, expertly tapping panels here, brushing his fingers there. He climbed into the cockpit with unexpectedly fluid motions, confidently flipping switches and adjusting controls without barely looking at them. He caught Jyn watching him and blushed.

Cassian buckled into the co-pilot’s seat, every movement feeling stiff and jerky. Wrong. His body wanted to be on the other side of the cockpit. He kept glancing to his left, expecting to see K2. He realized this was the first time he’d flown since Eadu. And the first time he’d flown without K2 in years. He could barely remember a time before he’d had the loyal droid at his side. He cast a sidelong glance at Helix. He appeared competent, but Cassian doubted he would be shooting sardonic zingers at he or Jyn any time soon.

* * *

 

The trip to Hoth was uneventful. Jyn checked blasters and divided up gear, laying out their snowsuits. Cassian knew Commander Pastitsio would be waiting for them on the ground.

“We should get dressed now,” Helix suggested, glancing back at Jyn, who motioned sharply for him to continue.

“Hoth is cold,” Helix stated. Jyn stared and he shifted nervously. “If we put on our suits now, it gives them time to warm up. Helps once you’re on the ground.”

Jyn scanned his face and her eyes warmed a fraction. “That’s a good idea, thank you Helix.” She finished dressing first and she watched Helix while he pulled on his gear. Her icy resistance to his presence started to melt away. The boy’s chestnut hair flopped into his wide brown eyes, set above a narrow nose. She realized with a start that his eyes reminded her very much of Cassian’s and his hair matched hers. Even the tone of his skin was half way between theirs. If she and Cassian had a son, he would look like Helix. The very thought shocked her and her face heated. Cassian caught her bright flush and shot her a quizzical look.

“Where are our outer jackets and helmets?” Helix questioned Jyn.

“Yavin 4 didn’t have any, we’re getting them once we land.” He nodded once and returned to the cockpit to check their descent. Cassian made his way towards Jyn, grasping the lapels of her ivory vest. He leaned down, murmuring in her ear, “I wish I could take all of this off you right now.” Her breath caught and electricity zipped down her spine. “I guess I’ll just settle for kissing you,” he continued, pulling her into his arms. She cast a glance over his shoulder. “What about Helix?”

“I don’t care who knows,” he said, the edges of his voice ragged. Then his lips were on hers and Jyn didn’t care either. He wrapped a hand around the back of her neck, clutching her to him with a thirst Jyn could taste on his tongue. Her blood rushed through her limbs and she wished sorely that they were alone on the ship. She’d seen the ETA on the display – they would have had time. Her hands traveled to his hips, kneading the bulge growing between them. He moaned, little more than a vibration that hummed through her skin. “That’s not very nice,” he whispered against her lips.

“Just wanted to remind you what comes later,” she purred into his ear. Cassian shivered at her words. Her voice changed when she was so close to him, growing softer, rounder – rich like wildflower honey. He decided the first chance they had on Hoth, he was dragging her into a room with a lock on the door.

“I think we need to take a little break once we reach the base,” Jyn said in between kisses. “Just us somewhere in a room. That’s exactly the kind of break I need.” 

“You read my mind,” he whispered.

Helix toggled switches and adjusted controls, preparing for the exit from hyperspace. He probably should call Cassian to assist with the land, but he didn’t, strictly speaking, _need_ Cassian. He leaned over, peeking out of the cockpit and smiled to himself. Cassian and Jyn were still locked close, completely lost in each other. He suspected he could crash the ship before they noticed what was going on. It was just so _romantic_.

He sighed wistfully. They were like a couple from one of his books – heroic and fearless, fighting side by side against the forces of evil. He’d seen how Jyn looked at Cassian, like someone who’d been wandering around a maze of a city and then finally spotted her destination. Every time she looked at him, it was the same. All at once – the stun of recognition, followed by a sigh of relief, and the rush of joy as she anticipated reaching it. Like the look of a lost person coming home.

Helix’s ears reddened as he thought about Brenly looking at him like that. His perfect ocean blue eyes following Helix around the room like there was nothing else he ever wanted to look at it. He sighed again. It would never happen. Probably because Brenly didn’t know he existed.

A pocket of turbulence bumped their ship. Helix was practically flying blind through the blowing snow, relying almost entirely on radar to reach the base. He was singlehandedly landing a ship in very unpleasant conditions. He took a deep breath. If he could do that, he could talk to Brenly. He promised himself that as soon as he saw Brenly again, he would march right up and introduce himself.

“Are you planning to land without me?”

Cassian’s voice broke through his daydream and he jumped six inches. He recovered quickly. “I can do it,” he said stubbornly.

“I believe you. Still, it would make me feel better to be here. Just in case.”

Cassian caught Helix rolling his eyes at him. “Okay, Dad,” he retorted with the exaggerated condescension only teenagers could achieve. Cassian’s jaw dropped and he looked back at Jyn, who was shaking in her seat with silent laughter.

“’Dad,’” Cassian grumbled. “I’m only 10 years older than you. And you should show some respect.”

“Whatever you say, Pops,” Helix quipped quietly with a smirk. Jyn’s laughter became audible.

Their comms lit up as the Gamma base contacted them. Helix gave them a security code and call sign, following a flight tech’s flashing orange signals into the hangar.

They were met with a grimacing Commander Pastitsio when they disembarked.

“Captain Andor,” the Commander nodded to Cassian, who hooked his thumb at Jyn. “This is Jyn Erso.”

The Commander’s grimace turned momentarily into a look of admiration. “I hear you singlehandedly inspired the entire Yavin 4 fleet into battle.”

“You make it sound so heroic,” she said with a trace of bitterness. She and Cassian shared a look, and Helix caught the heavy suffering that passed between them. He wondered how many friends they’d lost in the battle.

“This is Helix, our pilot,” Jyn said, pointing to him. Helix jumped at her unexpected introduction.

The Commander sighed. “Mon Mothma said you wanted to talk to one of the officers who fled Tatooine. Walk with me.”

Jyn noticed the base buzzed with surprising intensity, technicians and officers moving briskly up and down the halls. “What’s going on, Commander?”

He shot her a pensive look. “We just received confirmation of an Imperial Viper probe droid. The pilot sent to track it down is in pursuit, but I’m afraid it’s too late.” He paused. “We’re evacuating the base. I sent the order out barely a minute before you landed.”

Jyn’s reply came short and irate. “ _Seriously?”_

Pastitsio looked like she sounded. “I think I waited too long to send out the order. Imperial forces may already be on their way.”

As if on cue, the Commander’s commlink chirped.

“Commander?”

“Pastitsio speaking.”

“Imperial forces confirmed. They’ll land in minutes. It looks like they brought AT-ATs.”

Cassian cursed softly and Jyn clutched his forearm.

“Scramble the fleet and prepare for a flanked ground assault. Evacuate everyone else as quickly as possible,” the Commander barked. He grabbed the arm of a passing solider. “Get these three jackets and helmets.” He glanced at their weapons. “And bigger blasters. Get them whatever they want.”

He nodded to Jyn and Cassian. “Excuse me, I need to go.” They nodded in understanding, turning to the soldier. She gave them a grim smile. “Welcome to Hoth.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I named the Commander after my dinner.  
> 2\. It drives me crazy that it's "Yavin 4" and "Tantive IV." Make up your damn mind!  
> 3\. I borrowed the rebels run to hoth -> viper probes find them -> emipre attacks base mini-plot from a star wars video game (with some notable adjustments).


	7. Chapter 7

Helix seemed troubled by the number of grenades Jyn was packing on her person. “Shouldn’t we be evacuating?”

Cassian answered him. “All non-military personnel have to finish evac protocol and then they’ll evacuate first. The Imperial troops are already here. No one’s getting off this planet without an assault and retreat. It would be like running away with your back to a firing squad. Since we came in here with a scout ship, we’re going to be on ground assault until the last minute.”

Helix looked pale but he nodded, looking apprehensively at all the weapons in the armory. “What should I take?”

Jyn wordlessly shoved a bandolier of grenades over his head and a giant blaster into his arms. “Can you hold that up and shoot it?”

Helix steadied the weapon in his arms. It was heavier than anything he’d ever used before but it felt good. He wiggled his shoulders. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Hope your ‘think so’ turns into dead Stormtroopers,” Jyn muttered, brushing past him. He took a deliberate breath and followed her.

As they headed for the base exit, Cassian asked the solider-turned-guide, Nadia, to find the rebels who fled from Tatooine. “We need to talk to one of them,” he insisted.

“Cassian!” Jyn snapped, “Not now.”

“I can do both,” he retorted. “It’s important.”

Jyn couldn’t argue with that part.

Nadia spoke into her commlink, asking the person on the other side to get someone named Kali Durga and have her meet them at the doors.

Kali turned out to be a woman who looked a little younger than Jyn, with cream and caf skin, elegant lines, and thoughtful eyes. She handled her blaster like it was an extension of her arm.

She turned a sharp gaze on the four as they jogged up. “Who are you?” She demanded, walking towards the doors, not stopping even when she yanked her thick black hair into a messy bun at the nape of her neck. Jyn liked her immediately. “We’re from Yavin 4. Mon Mothma said you overheard an Imperial officer mention a search for plans.” Kali tightened her helmet over her head and pointed at her ear. Jyn pulled her own helmet on, speaking over the commlink. “I’m Jyn.”

“Jyn Erso?”

“Yeah. You’ve heard of me?”

“Everyone in the Alliance has heard of you by now. So where’s Captain Andor?”

Jyn pointed at Cassian a split second before his face was obscured by his helmet. She didn’t ask why her presence automatically meant Cassian was nearby. _“People talk,”_ Senator Jebel had told her. _Apparently,_ Jyn thought wryly. “The little one is Helix.”

“Hey!” Helix protested over the commlink. “The _little one_ is your pilot.”

“Yes, he’s our pilot,” Jyn added dryly. She thought she heard Kali snort.

Cassian eyed Helix, making up his mind about something. “Helix, stay with the ship. Get it to the very edge of the hangar and keep the engines ready. Use the commlink to keep track of us at all times.”

His shoulders slumped. “But I have this giant blaster!”

“Use it to keep the ship Stormtrooper-free.”

Helix turned, grumbling, and took off at a quick clip towards the hangar. His oversized gear dragged, the pants bunching up around his clunky boots.

“We’ll be in Beta ground squad under Sergeant Ellitura,” Kali instructed them.

Cassian and Jyn fell into step with each other, joining the rest of the Beta squad as they dashed outside. They marched through the doors into the melee. Battle always looked like chaos at first glance. Soldiers ran in every direction. Starfighters zig-zagged through the air like kamikaze insects. Laser cannons decorated the air with sprays of particle beams. But after a few minutes, the patterns of the battle emerged.

Cassian immediately picked out the patterns of this battle. TIE fighters and X-wings zoomed through the skies in a deadly dance. Five AT-ATs approached the base, fanning out to cover 180 degrees of ground. An Imperial Lambda shuttle landed between the AT-ATs and the base, releasing waves of Storm and Snowtroopers. Cassian scanned the grounds, running several scenarios in his head.

The ‘troopers were already breaking into squadrons and expanding the 180 degree coverage. They probably wanted to force the Alliance soldiers around to the wrong side of the base, separating them from their escape route. Cassian kept picking out different scenarios, but without K2 to run survival probabilities on them, he was just making educated guesses.

Beta squad, along with several others, took up positions behind various outbuildings and walls in an attempt to provide some cover from AT-AT fire. Cassian and Jyn crouched next to each other, nearly hip to hip. They couldn’t do anything now except wait for the Stormtroopers to reach firing range. The TIE fighters and AT-ATs were out of their hands.

Even through Cassian’s extensive gear, the cold was a sly enemy, seeping through layer after layer until every muscle felt the strain. He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination but Jyn looked like she was favoring the leg injured at Scarif. She kept shifting her weight on and off the leg, with the emphasis on off. He wondered if the cold was bothering the injury.

The troopers reached them and the battle begun. Jyn’s focus narrowed to the target immediately in front of her. Shoot, cover, shoot, cover. Throw a grenade, cover. Over and over. Her fingers ached from pulling the trigger. Sweat streamed onto her brow and then cooled, leaving her skin with a chilling veil. The helmet helped to block out some of the noise, but the ping of particle beams and the explosions happening around them set her ears ringing before long. She didn’t bother to keep track of the air assault, she knew Cassian was aware of everything going on around them, probably more aware than of the ‘troopers immediately in their paths. They slowly pushed the wave of Stormtroopers back. Soldiers on either side of them dropped, but Cassian couldn’t spare more than a quick glance and a silent prayer for the fallen.

“Beta squad, retreat into main hangar. Board ships. We’re getting out of here,” came Sergeant Ellitura over their commlinks. Jyn wanted to cheer, but settled for a quick squeeze of Cassian’s wrist. Although Stormtroopers were approaching behind them, their numbers were small and they were still out of firing range. Cassian noticed at least three AT-ATs lying in smoking pieces. Ship after ship emerged from the hangar and pulled away from the landing pad.

He pulled Jyn to her feet and she ran on ahead of him. He made a quick sweep of the area, making sure they weren’t leaving any living behind. When he started after her, he watched her injured leg. She was definitely limping, he decided as they jogged for the hangar. He was so focused on the rhythm of her gait, he didn’t see the Stormtrooper until it was too late.

It seemed to happen in slow motion, and it seemed to happen all at once.

A ‘trooper lay slumped in a pool of his own blood crystalizing over the snow, apparently dead. Then his arm jerked, pulling something out from beneath him.

The Stormtrooper looked at Jyn. His wrist flicked. Cassian registered the gleam of a pin being pulled from a grenade.

“JYN!” He screamed at her, forgetting to dive for cover. She didn’t hear him.

The grenade detonated, shredding through the Stormtrooper and sending her flying through the air. The impact knocked him onto his back.

Cassian cried her name again, a furious, broken noise. He scrambled to his feet and lurched for her body, intent only on reaching her, pulling off his helmet as he ran. He dropped to his knees at her side, hauling her into his arms. Her head lolled against him, her eyes slitted.

“Jyn! Jyn!” He tried to hold her head steady with a trembling hand. Her eyes fluttered, unfocused. Her snowsuit was shredded open on her left side, exposing blistered and burned flesh to the bitter cold. Blood dripped and congealed almost instantly, leaving a thick and sticky second skin over his arms. He wanted to stop the bleeding but he wasn’t even sure where it was coming from. He yelled her name again.

Jyn heard her name, screamed across a void. On one side, she saw escape. Finality. She could slip away from this world with barely a step. On the other, Cassian. Between them stood pain. She heard her name again and again, and her heart thrummed with the need to answer him. She plunged into the void.

The world blazed back to her with agonizing harshness. She felt as if every wound was happening again. Her lungs burned with the acrid smell of her own burned flesh. She’d been so close to the grenade. She didn’t need to look down to know her left side was mangled, shredded open. She felt like her cries were deafening, but Cassian only heard whimpers and the struggling rattle of her breath.

Cassian gave a startled, elated cry when she jerked in his arms, her eyes opening again, focusing on his face. But the pain that crawled into her features almost made him wish she was still hovering at the edge of unconsciousness.  The limpness of her body terrified him. He’d seen her fight with bruises and cuts, bleeding and torn fingernails, legs sporting the marks of blaster fire, muscles ready to snap off her body with exhaustion. But still, she always fought. There was no fight in her now, her body was just a useless thing, merely a tether for her soul. A shaking hand reached for her helmet and he pulled it off her with care.

“I love you, Cassian,” she gasped through bloodied lips.

He was shaking his head violently. “No, Jyn, no, don’t say it like that. Don’t say it like you’re – “ His voice broke on the last words and she finished them for him. _Like I’m saying goodbye._

The darkness came for her.

Her eyes shut and the last bit of strength he felt in her disappeared. He shook her, repeating her name, trying to call her back from whatever place her body had forced her mind for the sake of self-preservation.

And yet, he knew that wasn’t what was happening. He knew and he wouldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe it. But already, he was nearly certain her chest wasn’t rising and falling. Not a single puff of vapor rose from her face. He ripped open her vest and set his hand at her sternum, his cupped fists driving into her lungs again and again. A dry sob escaped when he heard the crack of ribs. A round of fire pelted the ground around him. A blast skimmed his side. And then another blast struck him, burning into his thigh with a sound like fizzling coals. He didn’t feel the pain; there was no room in his mind for more. He pressed two shaking fingers to her neck, but they were too numb to detect her pulse. Or there was no pulse to detect.

He wished he’d seen the grenade sooner. He wished he’d kissed her longer before they left the ship. He wished he’d told her he loved her, one last time. He wished. He wished. He wished.

Hands grabbed his coat from behind, attempting to haul him to his feet. “No!” he bellowed, striking out blindly, his hand connecting with Kali’s side. She grunted but didn’t falter.

“Captain!” she barked. “Get up, we have to get out of here. There’s a whole other squad of ‘troopers headed our way and nowhere to hide. We have to get to your ship.” She twisted and returned fire to the Stormtroopers advancing from behind them.

Cassian stroked Jyn’s cheek with his thumb. He smoothed back her hair.

“Get up!” Kali growled.

“Leave me here,” Cassian spit back.

She wrenched his shoulders back, enough to look him in the eye. “I won’t let you stay here and die.”

“I can’t leave her,” Cassian whispered.

“What would Jyn do?” Kali demanded.

“She would run,” Cassian said hoarsely, eyes traveling over her white skin. “She would run and she would survive.”

“Then get the hell up.”

Cassian wasn’t crawling to his feet. He wasn’t running through layers of ice and snow on desperate legs. He was far, far away. All the things that bound him to this life felt like they were being snipped away one by one.

He heard chatter over his commlink. Helix, he realized, and Kali, shouting back and forth. Their furious arguing pulled him back to reality.

“Shut up, both of you! Helix where are you?”

“Look up!”

Helix and his ship were zooming over the snow, dangerously low to the ground. He sprayed a wave of blaster fire to cover them, then set the ship down long enough for Cassian and Kali to scramble aboard. The doors shut and the ship lurched, airborne again. Cassian dropped to his knees and hands, chest heaving.

“Where’s Jyn?” Helix demanded, noticing she wasn’t with them.

“Go!” shouted Kali.

“ _Where is Jyn?_ ” Helix repeated, his words frantic. They battered at Cassian like the waves of a storm crashing on a pier.

“Go!” Cassian repeated Kali in a choked voice.

Helix’s features turned to glass but he obeyed.

Distantly, he heard Helix swearing and the ship careened as he pulled a tight turn, racing back over the base.

Cassian dragged himself to a window, forehead smashed against the glass. He looked down into the snow, into the place where Jyn’s body lay. And he saw Stormtroopers. They swarmed around her, one lifting her by the shoulders, the other by the legs, and set her on a stretcher.

“Slow down!” He screamed at Helix, who reacted without comprehension. In the extra three seconds it bought Cassian, he saw a field medic strap an oxygen mask over her face. She disappeared into a transport.

“Jyn!” He yelled, slapping his hands against the glass. “Jyn! Jyn!”

Their ship flew over, and the sight dropped far behind them. He scrambled to the farthest window, shouting her name over and over as her transport dimmed into a grey smear.

Then he was careening into the cockpit, eyes wild. Kali threw an arm out across his chest, attempting to restrain him while his hands grasped ineffectually at Helix. “Stop! Stop! Turn around! We have to go back! Jyn is down there! She’s there! I saw her!”

“Jyn’s dead!” Kali snapped at him.

Cassian growled and threw the woman off him. She hit a wall with a hard thud and he heard her breath whoosh out of her. “No she’s not! The Stormtroopers were taking her away. They gave her oxygen!”

They both turned to Helix, who was throwing them distraught glances over his shoulder.

Kali held up a threatening finger, speaking with wheezing words. “If you go back, they’ll find us and shoot us down in seconds.”

Cassian was bent over with his hands on his knees, looking at Helix. " Jyn’s alive.”

Helix studied Cassian’s face for a second and then whipped back to the controls, his hands moving in a blur as he spun their ship around. He pulled in far too close to the ground, dropping speed as much as he could.

“You’re both insane!” Kali screamed at them.

“Find a cave or something to hide in,” Cassian barked at Helix, who acknowledged him with the slightest nod of his head. Cassian slid against a seat, squeezing his eyes shut. He’d left Jyn. He’d left Jyn and now the Empire had her.

He heard a rustle of gear and cracked one eye open. It was Kali. He waited for her to yell at him but the grim exasperation on her face turned soft. “You thought she was dead,” she gently reminded him.

“I never should have left her,” he insisted, his voice sounding frighteningly weak.

She laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “It’s not your fault.”

 _But it is,_ Cassian wanted to tell her. _It is my fault._

"We have to get her back," he said.

Kali chewed on her lip. She realized he probably knew how hopeless it was to try to break into a now-Imperial occupied base to rescue a dying woman with only three people - well, two people and a child, she amended with a glance at Helix - but she recognized the look in Cassian's eyes. It was the look in her father's eyes when he asked for her help rescuing her mother after she was arrested as a Rebel spy. Her father had been caught. Both her parents had been executed. Kali had been 13. And it was the look in Kali's eyes every morning when she looked into the mirror and promised her namesake goddess revenge on the Empire. She knew it was pointless to talk Cassian out of it. 

"I'll come with you," she told him somberly.

He shook his head. "I cannot ask you to do that."

"You're not asking," Kali said, her reassuring hand turning to a vise. "I'm telling." She clapped him on the shoulder. "Let's get those blaster wounds taken care of."

She sighed as she searched for a medpac. This was as good of a way to go as any, she told herself. She cast a sidelong glance at Cassian, who was staring numbly at the floor. He and Jyn were among the small handful of people who made it off Scarif, _after_ rescuing the Death Star plans. She knew the pilot that picked them up and flew them out. He had told Kali they were both injured and Cassian could barely stand. If anyone was going to get them off Hoth, it was Jyn and Cassian. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the comments you guys left on the last chapter were so touching and meant so much. I love to hear your stories and learn more about you. And I'm glad I was able to be at least a little bright spot in a dark day for some.
> 
> I can't believe that now Debbie Reynolds is gone too, but I know she and Carrie are together.


	8. Chapter 8

Jyn wondered if this was how all people died. External to themselves, yet somehow aware of their bodies shutting down. Her breaths ceasing, her heart slowing. She was weightless. She knew what came next. She would leave her body behind.

And she fought it. She screamed and struggled and kicked. She shouted at the universe, at the Force, at any and all powers that might hear her. She would not, could not, leave Cassian behind.

She could feel it being deliberated. Absurd, she told herself, but still, she could. Counting up the reasons Jyn shouldn’t remain in the world, contrasting them with all the reasons she deserved to live. She screamed out to the universe again. She felt like her fight lasted an eternity. Too many lifetimes, more than the life she’d already lived. Finally, the darkness pulled back, retreating. She’d won.

Jyn’s eyes fluttered open to blinding whiteness. White skies, white flurries in the air, and white armored bodies swayed in her vision. There was no Cassian. Stormtrooper commlink squawking filled her ears.

She waited for a blaster bolt to the head. Or just to be abandoned to the cruel surface of Hoth. Instead, arms jostled her broken body back and forth. She tried to twist her head, to look around and see if Cassian was nearby, but she could barely wrench it more than an inch one direction. Someone clapped an oxygen mask over her face.

The sky spun, then turned into a dark beige smudge. She realized they’d put her in a transport vehicle. Hands picked and plucked at her body, slapping bacta patches on her burned flesh, injecting her with stinging needles. Her vision was still foggy and her head throbbed with explosive pain.

From the front, she heard more garbled commlink chatter. The only thing she made out was “wanted for interrogation.”

 _That would be me they’re talking about,_ she thought. Her blood grew even colder, turned to ice by a possibility far worse than being left to die in the snow. They were going to torture her for information. She internally smirked. She could barely breathe, let alone talk. It would be useless, and they’d figure that out soon enough. Maybe she’d die before they even got that far. _I change my mind, I want to die,_ she shouted at the universe. But whatever powers she thought she’d touched before, they were silent and withdrawn. The Rebel forces were gone. Cassian was gone. She was alone.

They carried her into a room with high ceilings and punishingly bright lights. The familiar scent of antiseptic and bacta tanks burned her nose.

“Patch her up,” said an officer to the medic. “Lieutenant Christill wants to talk to her as soon as possible.”

The medic was aghast. “She’ll be in no state to talk. She needs to be in a bacta tank.”

“No tank. Just dose her. We only need her alive and talking long enough to find out where the Rebels went with that droid.”

 _Droid?_ Jyn thought maybe she was hallucinating. The Empire would never chase a few Rebels across the galaxy for a droid. And what did they mean they were going to dose her? 

Someone shoved another needle into her. Out of the corner of one watering eye she saw a crimson filled tube hanging from a bag. She assumed the other end was the needle in her arm. The medic’s expert hands cut open her thick gear, leaving her numbing limbs exposed to the frigid room. There were more bacta patches and ointments and another bag of blood. The pad beneath her started to warm.

Jyn evaluated the medic as he worked. Medium height, with a stocky build and broad shoulders. Biceps like logs. Even if she had the strength to stand, he looked like he could throw her across the room with little effort. Her eyes snagged on his. Despite her blurry vision, she could make out the resentment swimming in his smoky quartz eyes. He injected her with a purplish liquid that made her veins tingle. She blacked out.

When she came to, she wasn’t sure how much time had passed. He’d cleaned the blood off her, wrapped her in healing sheaths and bandages, and dressed her in a lightweight suit that was surprisingly warm. He’d even left her kyber necklace in place. Her vision had cleared and she could move her head again. She suspected it was hard for a medic, even an Imperial medic, not to care for their patients, even if their patient was a Rebel. But she was strapped to the heated bed with an unnecessary number of restraints.

_Cassian will come for me._

The thought was quiet but insistent, the words echoing around her head until she could think about nothing else.

Her memories pushed in, scoffing at her. Reminding her of all the times she’d waited for someone to come for her, and all the times they didn’t. Cassian probably escaped Hoth and was safely on his way back to Yavin 4.

_But he rescued me on Jedha and Eadu. And followed me to near certain death on Scarif._

_This is different,_ she argued with herself. _He went to Scarif because he wanted to fight. It was for the Alliance_.

She thought of the commlink she’d stuffed in her pocket as they left the ship. If she could somehow get to it, she could see if any Alliance forces were still on Hoth.

_It doesn’t matter either way. He probably thinks you’re dead, or will be soon enough. He’s not coming back for you._

She roughly silenced her inner debate. _You’re on your own_ , she convinced herself.

She held still for several more minutes while she evaluated her other options. She could try to escape, but on her own, she wouldn’t make it far. Injured, unarmed, with no real way off the base. There was no way she could steal and pilot a ship in this condition. Her insides hardened, freezing into cold, unfeeling stone. She couldn’t escape and no one was coming to her rescue. It was pointless to hope for it.

The medic noticed she was awake. Instead of looking pleased, he cast her a sick, pitying look. Then he spoke into his commlink.

“She’s up.”

“I’ll be right there,” came the reply. “Dose her now.”

The medic ground his square jaw but got up to obey. She realized the resentment in his eyes hadn’t been directed at her. He seemed to be moving with deliberate slugishness as he filled a syringe with a dark liquid. When he held it up to the light, the liquid glowed a deep green.

“What is that?” she rasped, her voice startling him.        

“I’m sorry,” he said. He didn’t sound sorry. He sounded _miserable_. His hand came down over her face, gently tilting her head away from him to expose her jugular. The needle plunged into her neck. Jyn hissed at the sting of the puncture, bracing herself for whatever happened next. A second passed and she felt no change. The medic stepped back in terrified apprehension.

Then an icy sensation ripped through her veins. Jyn could only think that it felt like touching something so cold that it burned. But the freezing burn was inside her, filling every vein, every capillary. She tried to scream, but it came out as a wheezing gasp. The medic’s face blurred in her eyes as tears filled them.

The burning was replaced with a staccato stabbing pain, engulfing her body. The lights flared in her eyes and she squeezed her lids shut but still the light was too much. Voices screamed in her ears. The voices from outside the med bay, she realized. She couldn’t understand what they were saying, but they were so loud. She was all at once aware of everything. The spindly invasion of the catheter needle. Every thread of her suit touching every inch of her skin. The unbearable pressure of the restraints strapped across her chest, arms, and legs. Her heartbeats turned into a racing throb and her breaths came fast and shallow. She could count her nerve endings. She could see the strokes left behind by the paint rollers on the far wall. She felt like she could lift a man with one hand. She felt like she could jump off a building and fly. There were so many sensations racing through her body that she barely noticed that nothing hurt anymore.

“What,” she spat through gritted teeth, “did you do to me?”

The medic was still watching her. “It’s a stimulant.” She winced at his voice howling in her ears. “We needed you awake. And pain free.”

“Why would you do that?” Her voice came out at a near-whisper, but still the sound buzzed through her head, rattling her teeth.

The medic grew reticent. “So Lieutenant Christill can question you.”

Jyn snarled at him. They both knew he meant “torture.” They got rid of her pain so they could inflict more. They needed some kind of leverage over her.

She sucked in a breath. “What information could you possibly get out of me?”

“Where the Rebel base is. And what you did with the plans to the Death Star.”

“What are you talking about?”

The medic looked over his shoulder and leaned closer. “I overheard one of the officers say the plans to the Death Star were stolen.”

“They were aboard a ship _you_ destroyed.”

The medic winced at her use of the royal ‘you,’ but continued, drawing even closer. “Someone got to Tatooine with them.”

A small, unfrozen corner of her heart flared. The hope that fluttered in her chest at Yavin 4 spread its wings and took off.

“And they didn’t recover the plans at Tatooine?” Jyn asked, afraid to even breathe.

The medic shook his head. She heard every twist of his springy black curls as they moved. “That’s why we all came here. And now they’ll use you to find the plans and the base.”

She didn’t know why he was telling her all of this, but Jyn recognized the wounded yearning in the medic’s eyes. The look on his face when she lumped him with the Empire.

“What’s your name?”

He startled, completely caught off guard by her question. “Iaan.”

“Iaan,” she said softly. “I’m Jyn.”

He swallowed, a war emerging on his face.

She strained against her bonds in an attempt to lean towards him. “Iaan, please listen to me, I don’t know anything! They’ll be torturing me for no reason.”

His skin took on a grey tinge. “They know you know where the rebel base is. They’ll torture you until you die.”

Jyn let her face collapse into the most devastated expression possible. It wasn’t hard, and it wasn’t entirely fake. “It will all be for nothing.” She felt a tear slide from her eye. She could feel every pore touched by the liquid, every gradient drop in temperature as it traveled down her face. When it hit the floor, she heard a waterfall. “Help me,” she begged him. “Help me escape. You can come with me.”

Iaan’s hands twitched with agonizing indecision.

“I know you don’t want to be here. I can see it on your face. You don’t belong here.”

“That’s not true,” he said, but his resistant words sounded like an agreement.

“You could be doing more,” Jyn pled. “You could truly save lives.”

He opened his mouth to answer her but he was interrupted when the door to the med bay banged open and she heard footsteps. Iaan’s gaze swung to the newcomer. Her executioner had arrived.

* * *

 

Helix wedged their ship in a tiny ice cave. He and Kali huddled around Cassian, who was still crouched in a seat. He’d barely moved while Kali treated his injuries.

“Cassian,” Helix said. He had to repeat his name two more times before Cassian looked up. Helix puffed his cheeks and let out a rush of breath. “We got word from Yavin 4. They said to return to the base immediately.”

Cassian stared at him. “If we stay we’re committing insubordination and disobeying direct orders. We’ll probably get stripped of our ranks. I doubt I’ll ever see the inside of another ship again, unless I’m cleaning it.”

Now both Cassian and Kali were staring.

Helix shrunk under their gazes. “I just wanted to say that out loud,” he squeaked.

Cassian’s lips twitched in the suggestion of a smile as he thought about how this wouldn’t be the first time he’d disobeyed direct orders for Jyn. Or even the second.

He pulled up a map of the base on his datapad. “We head for the med bay first.”

Kali arched a brow. “Why wouldn’t we go to the detention block first?”

“They didn’t shoot Jyn or leave her to die – they want her for something. But dead women can’t talk, so they take her to the med bay.”

She crossed her arms. “That is a rather far intuitive leap.”

Cassian’s eyes dropped to the datapad. “Call it a spy’s intuition.” _Or my own wishful thinking._ He wasn’t sure if he believed Jyn would be in the med bay for the reasons he gave Kali or because he couldn’t bear to consider any alternative that didn’t end with her surviving.

Kali’s face indicated she suspected it was the latter driving Cassian to the med bay but she didn’t argue.

Their comm system beeped and Helix jumped up to answer it.

A young man’s voice filled the ship. “Calling any Alliance ships or personnel. This is Rookie One. Is there anyone out there?”

Helix’s eyes widened and his gaze flew to Cassian, who gestured wildly for him to respond.

“Y-yes, Rookie One? This is the pilot of Star Scout Six.”

“What are you doing here still? Didn’t you get the message to return to Yavin 4?” Rookie One asked with barely smothered excitement.

“We, we, uh – we _are_ , but just, not right away. We have to, uh – “

“Give me that,” Cassian grumbled, yanking the transmitter out of Helix’s hand. He pulled the headset on and shut the speaker off.

“This is Captain Cassian Andor requesting a status report from Rookie One.”

Kali and Helix exchanged frustrated glances while Cassian carried on the conversation privately. Their frustration turned suspenseful as Cassian’s dark expression cleared. His slumped shoulders disappeared. He turned to a console and started tapping on the screen. “I see you. Just head straight east, you run right into us. We’re in a cave. Not that well hidden. I will comm you if you get off track…okay. Copy that.”

Cassian hung up the headset and turned to them with a slight smile. “That is the pilot sent after the Viper probe. His snow speeder died on the way back to the base during the battle. The Commander had to leave him behind. He was headed back to try to fight his way in and get his ship. I told him to come here.”

“You didn’t tell him that we’re going back for Jyn,” Kali stated flatly.

“So? He wants to get his starfighter and Cassian wants to get his girl,” Helix practically crowed. “It’s a win-win.”

Cassian leveled a stern stare at Helix but his mouth twitched as he tried to suppress a smile. “We explain when he gets here.”

Kali chewed her lip. “It would be a lot easier to get off Hoth with a starfighter. Maybe we won’t die after all.”

Helix’s jaw dropped. “Kal-i!” he exclaimed. “We’re not going to die! Cassian has to save Jyn.”

Kali reached down and ruffled his hair with a smirk. “You sweet, naïve child. Never change.”

He smacked her hand away with a scowl and smoothed down his hair.

Cassian glared. “Act like adults for ten minutes, please. We still don’t know how we get into the base.”

Kali and Helix shared sheepish expressions. They studied the map of the base for a few quiet minutes.

“And no fighting when Rookie gets here,” Cassian barked at them without looking up. Helix rolled his eyes at Kali and she smirked.

Cassian looked up with a glimmer in his eye. “Okay, this is the plan.”

* * *

 

Jyn’s last screams still burned in her throat. They'd tipped her bed upright, for what purpose Jyn couldn't fathom, and she sagged against the restraints, chest heaving.

Lieutenant Christill’s bone-thin fingers tightened in frustration around Jyn’s left wrist and she whimpered. She roughly jammed the glass dropper back into the bottle of hydrochloric acid. Out of the corner of Jyn’s eye, she saw Christill hold the dropper over her left arm again. Christill had shoved up Jyn’s sleeve and removed the dressings, seeking out second degree burns. Jyn knew it was because first or third wouldn’t hurt nearly as much. Every question that went unanswered was another drop of acid on Jyn’s ruined skin. The pain was nearly unbearable. Every time the liquid hit her skin and sizzled, Jyn’s vision warped and swam, sometimes going entirely black. She’d already thrown up whatever little was in her stomach and now dry heaves wracked her body.

Despite the pain-reducing qualities of the stimulant, Jyn still felt herself cracking apart. The sheer, overwhelming barrage of sensations strained at the very limits of her mind. She could feel her sanity slipping away one drop at a time. She would go crazy before Christill killed her. Something about that struck her stretched mind as incredibly funny and a maniacal giggle escaped her.

Christill grabbed a handful of Jyn’s hair and ripped her hanging head up. “What is so _amusing_ to you, Rebel scum?”

Jyn laughed again and then quickly grew somber. “You’ll never win,” she growled. She spit in Christill’s face, grinning when it hit her in the eye. The Lieutenant’s hand cranked back and she cuffed Jyn across the face. Her vision exploded in brilliant white sparks and she gasped. She thought she heard her neck crack.

As Christill wiped her eye, Jyn heard a muffled voice over her commlink. Christill pressed a finger to her ear while she listened.

“Affirmative,” Christill spoke into her commlink. “Give me a few minutes to wrap up here.” She barely looked at Iaan while she stood up, gathering her things. “Kill her. Incinerate the body.”

Jyn’s eyes flew to Iaan, who’d frozen in his steps, while her mind scrambled to figure out what could cause the Lieutenant to abandon her interrogation. The only thing she could think of was that they recovered the plans or they found Yavin 4. Or both.

Iaan was still frozen in place, his eyes wide. “Y-yes, Lieutenant Christill,” he muttered, trying to steel his voice. He took one hesitant step towards Jyn, then one towards a cabinet. His steps waffled as his gaze locked on Jyn. “I just have to, uh, prepare an injection.” Fear shot through her body.

“Oh, for stars sake,” Christill groused, unholstering her blaster and sweeping it up towards Jyn. Iaan’s hands blurred and he moved with startling precision, grabbing a tray off the nearest table and smashing it into Christill’s head. The hard metal made a crunching squelch as the edge connected with the softest spot of her temple and her skull collapsed inwards. She dropped to the duracrete floor.

Iaan stared in horror at the blood pooling from the gash in Christill’s head. He dropped the tray with a clatter. “I’ve never hurt anyone on purpose before,” he whispered, half to himself.

Jyn didn’t have time for sympathy. He could have an existential crisis later. “Get me out of these!”

Iaan snapped back and rushed to her side, undoing her restraints with surprisingly steady hands. She sagged against him the second she was free, and he wrapped an arm around her as he led her to a chair.

He knotted his wide hands in his thick hair. “What have I done? We’re not going to get out of here!”

“Shut the kark up,” Jyn snapped at him.

He raised incredulous eyes to hers. “You can barely stand! I’m not a solider or a pilot – or, or anything! I’m a medic. We’re going to get caught.”

“Then why did you help me?”

His gaze dropped to the cooling body of Lieutenant Christill. “I couldn’t let her kill you,” he trailed off.

Jyn was looking around the med bay. “Do you have any weapons in here?”

He shook his head. She nodded her chin at the dead officer. “Get her blaster, her commlink, and her uniform.”

“Her uniform,” Iaan echoed, confused.

“I’m going to wear it.” He looked skeptical. “Worked once before,” she shrugged, immediately wincing and regretting the action. “How long before this stimulant wears off?”

She didn’t miss the way Iaan’s hands faltered as he unbuttoned the Lieutenant’s jacket. “Ummm about an hour.”

Jyn sighed. “Okay. I’ll take the blaster. Find empty bottles, fill them with isopropyl alcohol and then stuff a wad of bandages in the top. As many as you can. Put them in a bag. Put that acid in there too. And matches or a lighter.”

Iaan nodded, woodenly obeying her. He helped her tug the officer’s uniform on over her suit, taking special care to replace the bacta patches on Jyn’s burned arm and adding a hefty dollop of an analgesic gel. When he thought Jyn wasn’t looking, he slipped a small vial and several empty needles into a side pocket of the bag. She gave him a wary look and opened her mouth to question him about it.

A red light started flashing over the door, followed by the deafening blare of an alarm. They heard running steps outside the room. Iaan looked at her with a stricken expression but she just grinned at him. “I think I know who that is. Where’s the jacket I came in with? There’s a commlink in the right side pocket.”

He hurried to fish it out of a biohazard waste bin. Jyn’s lip curled back when she saw it was splattered with blood. “I hope this works.”

She held it to her face and pressed on the transmitter. “Hello? Can anyone hear me?”

She counted her heartbeats in the silence that followed. Then finally, a crackling and some static.

“Jyn!”

She sagged against a table, her grin stretching painfully even as she choked back a sob of relief. “Cassian! Oh, you stupid, foolish man.”

“I love you too,” came his reply. She could hear the smile in his words. “Want to get out of here?”

“I’d like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long break! I got some bad writers block. Hopefully I get the next chapter up by Thursday. Sadly, I think I have about two chapters left for this fic. BUT I kind of want to turn this into a series, either that picks up immediately after this one ends or a few years in the future. What do you guys think about that?


	9. Chapter 9

Cassian was furious. Because he never should have left Jyn. Because the universe seemed determined to rip her from his side again and again. Because every second that went by was the countdown of a bomb inside him, ready to explode inside a very tight space.

 He’d once told Chirrut he and the Force had different priorities and it never seemed truer than at this moment. He paced in a tight circle while they waited for Rookie One. He fought the need to look at the geotracker display every 30 seconds to see how far off the pilot was.

Cassian growled and slammed a fist against a wall, drawing startled stares from Kali and Helix. “Where is that damned man?”

A second later, Rookie One announced his arrival over their comms before he knocked on the closed docking ramp. Helix lowered the ramp and he clanged up the steep incline, puffing under the weight of his heavy snow gear. His popped through the door to the sight of three people staring at him intently.

“Hello!” He cheerfully greeted them with a smile, oblivious to their intense scrutiny while he climbed the rest of the way in and peeled off the top half of his snowsuit, chattering the whole way. “I’m so lucky I hadn’t left my snowspeeder yet, or I would have missed that message about returning to Yavin. I thought ‘if they bothered to comm me there must be someone else still here as well,’ and it turned out I’m right! Man, and what if my snowspeeder had _totally_ lost power? I would have just been so screwed.” He stopped short, his smile wavering for a moment as he registered their stony gazes.

Cassian gave half a nod. His voice was rough when he spoke. “I’m Captain Cassian Andor. This is Helix, and that’s Kali.” Helix waved energetically and Kali grunted while she looked the newcomer up and down, apparently unaffected by his broad-shouldered, chiseled-chin conventional good-looks.

“Just call me Rookie, everyone else does,” the starfighter pilot grudgingly admitted, his cheery demeanor flagging for a second.

“Are you?” Kali smirked at him.

“Am I what?”

“A rookie.”

“No,” he said with the tiniest of winks only Kali saw. “Not remotely.”

Kali’s lip curled distastefully and she arched an eyebrow. “Good.”

Rookie looked between them. “Can we get going?”

Cassian’s eyebrows drew a deep V. “We’re going back for a member of our team who was captured. Jyn Erso.”

Rookie’s jaw dropped. “Jyn Eros is with you guys? She was captured? We’re going _back_ for her?”

“Can you say anything that someone else didn’t say first, _Rookie_?” Kali remarked with a slight edge to her voice.

Cassian cut her a sharp look and her mouth snapped shut. “Yes,” Cassian said. “Are you in?”

Rookie briefly glanced around at them, thoughts racing to assimilate the new info. “Sure,” he shrugged. “I was headed back in anyway and if Yavin 4 cleared this rescue then I’m all in.”

Helix’s alarmed gaze darted to Cassian, who maintained cool features. Kali, however, was shooting daggers at Helix, willing him to stay quiet. Rookie seemed not to notice.

Cassian managed a smooth smile. “That’s good, considering part of our plan depends on you.”

Rookie grinned. “Excellent. So what’s the plan?”

Cassian eclipsed Rookie’s view of the two others, holding up his datapad to trace their route into the base while he repeated it for him.

Helix would drop Cassian and Kali off a safe distance from the base. They would sneak in through a service tunnel, accessible through an external hatch they could open from the outside to get to the tunnel. But the inner door to the actual base could only be opened from the inside. Helix’s abundance of unused grenades would get the inner door open but it would alert everyone. Rookie thankfully agreed to his part, sneaking into the hangar according to his original plan, while Helix waited nearby. Once Rookie got to his starfighter, they would wait for Cassian’s signal to fire on the base and create enough havoc to split the Imperial forces between the explosion at the service tunnel and the hangar. Kali and Cassian would have to move quicksand fast to get out of the service tunnel before they got hedged in. The service tunnel and the hangar were opposite from each other and the med bay north of both. Cassian hoped the triangle would give them space to get to the hangar without directly fighting through the fray. Their timing would have to be impeccable. Every step depended on the previous step succeeding. They discussed rolling grenades into the vents that ran perpendicular to the main hallway to create a third diversion, but they didn’t want to bring the base down on themselves and get trapped in the rubble.

“How are you guys going to get inside the first hatch?” Rookie asked off-handedly as they bundled up. Cassian and Kali traded glances and she bit her lip. “Even if you can get something that heavy off, it’s going to be iced shut.” Rookie eyed them with a skepticism that rubbed at Kali.

“Oh! Oh!” Helix yelped, tripping over gangly legs as he scrambled to a storage compartment. He turned the latch and slowly slid the door open a few inches, warily eyeing the inside. The others watched curiously over his shoulder.

Helix loudly sighed with relief and slid the door the rest of the way. Rookie whistled appreciatively. Kali gaped at the contents and Cassian tried to make sense of what he was looking at. The storage compartment was a solid wall of _things_ jammed together like puzzle pieces that didn’t quite fit.

Helix surveyed the items, peering intently at the crammed compartment one corner at a time. “I think I had, umm…it’s in here somewhere.” He hesitantly tugged at a lumpy package of what looked like some kind of dried fruit, but the bag was so old the label had nearly rubbed off.

“I would ask _why_ ,” Kali said, gesturing at the compartment, “but I don’t really think I want to know.”

“I like to be prepared,” Helix huffed.

“Are you a klepto?” Kali put her hands on her hips and turned to Rookie. “He’s definitely a klepto,” she said confidentially.

“I am NOT,” Helix retorted. “Just maybe a bit of a packrat, I guess,” he admitted reluctantly, surveying the overcrowded compartment.

The mass of things creaked and Helix’s eyes widened. “Get back!” He threw his arms out in front of them, pushing Kali out of the way as the entire contents of the compartment careened forward in one solid wall. It crashed to the floor and split apart, items tumbling around Helix’s ankles like an incoming tide.

He stooped, examining the flood of knick-knacks and doodads while he scratched his chin. His eyes lit up and he stuck his hands into the pile, unearthing a bulky blow torch, which he shoved wordlessly at Kali. He fished for some other item no one else saw and pulled out a crow bar.

“You can melt the ice and then pry the hatch open!” He announced, waving the crow bar around wildly to punctuate his words. Cassian’s hand shot out and halted the exuberant swings of the hefty iron tool.

Kali’s mouth twisted to one side. “Well…that’s actually not a completely horrible idea.”

“Thanks!” Helix beamed, ignoring the underhanded part of her underhanded compliment.

Cassian merely nodded. “It’ll do. Clean this up.”

No one was particularly enamored with the plan, except Helix, who was excited at even the slightest prospect of using his giant blaster, even though Cassian explained to him repeatedly that under no circumstances should he leave the ship, except in the case of an absolute emergency. But they didn’t have time to plan anything better. Their plan depended on being fast and loud. It was all they had right now. Cassian had no inspiring words for them. He thought that Jyn would have something to say, something that created hope and determination to carry them through the danger ahead. She was so much better with words than he was.

All he had was a nod to Helix and Rookie when they exited Scout Six and took off at a creeping jog towards the base. Rookie watched Cassian and Kali grow smaller as they flew slowly away.

“What an unpleasant human,” Rookie commented, eyes still on Kali. 

Helix cocked his head. “I dunno, I kind of like her.”

“She’s just kind of….mean.”

“I think she’d consider that a compliment,” Helix chuckled.

“Exactly!”

Helix watched Rookie from the corner of his eye as he flew in a wide circle around the base. Rookie kept staring in Kali’s direction. Helix smiled to himself.

“Jyn’s not just a ‘member of the team,’ is she?” Rookie asked in a quieter voice.

Helix shook his head. “Cassian would go back in there by himself if he had to. I think he would do anything for her.”

Rookie pursed his lips. “Sometimes that’s not a good thing. I’m honestly pretty surprised you guys got the go-ahead on this rescue. It seems incredibly risky.”

Helix stared intently at the flight path in front of them, willing his thoughts to stay off his face.

“What’s wrong, kid?” Rookie apparently noticed anyway.

Helix scowled. His mother always told him he wore his heart on his face. “It, just uh – you can’t tell Cassian I told you this. Or anyone.”

“Spit it out.”

Helix gulped, his words coming out in one smooshed rush. “Wedon’tactuallyhavepermission.” He cringed, not looking at Rookie.

“ _What?!”_

“I said we don’t – “

“Yeah I heard you! Are you kriffing kidding me? Do you understand what you’re doing?”

“Saving the life of an Alliance hero.” Helix was relieved when his voice didn’t quiver.

Rookie was just staring at him while Helix found a temporary hiding spot behind a snowy rise. “You may commit insubordination every day, but I sure as hell don’t.”

Helix didn’t know what to say, so he shrugged, hoping it came off as nonchalant and not helpless.

Rookie laughed darkly. “Maybe this will at least earn me a new nickname. Like Maverick.”

“Nah, too many syllables. It’ll never catch on.”

Rookie stuck his lip out in an exaggerated pout. “You’re right. There’s no point to this rescue mission then. I quit. Leave me here.”

“I think Cassian would be mad.”

“He seems like the kind of guy you don’t want to make mad. The quiet ones are always the scariest.”

“Let’s not do that, then.”

“Agreed.”

* * *

 

Cassian fought to keep dark thoughts at bay. What if Jyn was dead? What if she wasn’t in the med bay? What if they found her but all got trapped in the base? What if he got everyone else killed? What if he got captured? He was an Intelligence officer with a head stuffed full of Alliance secrets. It was the reason he wore a “lullaby” field jacket – a jacket whose most easily accessible pocket held only poison pills. The other three didn’t have such preventative measures, and he couldn’t see any of them holding up under torture for long. He was risking so much more than his own life for Jyn. And he didn’t care. He knew he should – his recklessness should frighten him. But he just couldn’t bring himself to want anything except to get Jyn back.

Kali kept a wary eye on Cassian as they approached the first hatch. He moved swiftly enough, but Kali recognized the sharpness of his movements – the hard blows of his feet in the snow and the harshness of his silence. It all felt too sickeningly familiar.

They reached the point where their geotrackers said the external hatch would be and kicked at the snow until they heard the ring of their boots on metal. Cassian unhooked the blow torch from his small pack and wordlessly started heating the edges of the hatch. Rookie was right, the whole thing was iced over. Kali moved in with the crow bar as soon as Cassian moved away from a spot. She had a few inches on Cassian and a powerfully athletic frame – it only made sense to give her that task. Still, it made Cassian feel a bit useless. _You can’t do everything yourself._ He paused to look up at Kali, who was expertly wedging the bar into the open spaces and wiggling the hatch up and down. Guilt gnawed at him. Kali and Helix committed to help him with barely a word, like it was just a given that they would sacrifice their safety for Jyn too. He felt a rush of protection towards the two younger members of his new, ragtag team that tightened his chest and throat. He focused on taking long, even breaths. The length and events of the day were fraying his emotions and left him feeling raw. Exposed. Like every fear and worry was one thin layer from breaking through his skin. He vowed to get them all out alive. Jyn would want that.

It took too long to pry the hatch open. Every second they spent out in the open was another second for the Imperial forces to see them. Cassian felt little relief as they carefully descended the thin, frigid rungs to the tunnel. The info on the base had been sparse about what kind of security measures they’d encounter. He didn’t know what to expect.

He commed Helix and Rookie. “Rookie, get a move on into that hangar. Helix, if you have a comm with a holo on it, use that to track him. Kali and I will wait until Rookie’s in his ship to blast the door.”

“Copy that,” said Helix. “May the Force be with you.”

“And with you,” Kali returned quietly, even though Helix couldn’t hear her.

They wound through the labyrinth-like tunnel, hugging the walls to avoid any motion sensors in the open. The tunnel was built of rough-hewn blocks of stone. It looked far older than any other part of Gamma base and Cassian wondered what kind of species built the confounding tunnel and why.

Just when Cassian was starting to think they’d somehow got lost, they reached the inner door. Its modern lines stood out starkly from the rest of the tunnel, looking utterly out of place. Cassian smothered a gasp of relief. They set charges around the door, retreating down the tunnel to wait for Rookie’s signal.

Too much time passed. Cassian resumed his pacing to keep his toes from going numb. Suddenly the blare of alarms reached them, muffled and warped through the layers of duracrete and earth between the base and them, but unmistakable.

Cassian swore, comming Helix.

“What is happening out there?”

“Rookie was spotted. I’m heading to the hangar to help him out.” Helix’s statement came out as a question.

Cassian swore again. “Fine. We’ll blast the door. Plan remains.”

He nodded at Kali, whose finger hovered over the detonator. “Light it up.”

Just as Kali’s thumb touched the button, their comms crackled.

“Hello? Can anyone hear me?”

Cassian’s blood drained from his face. His hand shook as he reached for his commlink.

“Jyn!” The word came out with all the force of the fury and despair he’d been holding back since he first left her body in the snow.

“Cassian! Oh you stupid, foolish man!” Her voice was equal part joy and unshed tears.

He grinned into his commlink. “I love you too.” His heart soared with the words he thought he might never get to say again. “Want to get out of here?”

“I’d like that.”

He chuckled at her mild response. There were a thousand things he wanted to say to her, but first they had to get out. He forced himself to practical matters. “Where are you? Are you injured?”

“I’m in the med bay still. I’m – a little slow at the moment. I have a friend.” Unmistakable pride shone in her voice on the word ‘friend.’

Cassian paused. “Another Rebel was captured?”

“Nope. Better. The Alliance has itself a new medic.”

Cassian heard soft protests in the background and Jyn snorted in response. “You might as well,” she said to whomever was with her.

“Helix and Rookie are in the hangar. They’re going to give us a diversion while Kali and I get you out. We’re directly opposite the hangar at the main hallway.”

“Diversion?” Jyn’s voice had a scheming tone. Cassian could imagine her face while she said it – features neutral, eyes faraway like she had detached from reality for a moment to run through various ideas. “Would a fire help us out? Like say, in the vents?”

Cassian didn’t bother to ask how she would swing that. “Do it.”

“I’m sure there are some gas masks around here just in case.” She turned from the commlink again, instructing her “friend” in clipped but calm tones to look for masks.

“Start the fire, head for the hangar. We’ll find you. Don’t mind the explosions.”

“Be careful,” Jyn said, uncharacteristic worry in her words.

“I should say that to you,” Cassian responded teasingly.

Jyn’s voice dropped to a strained whisper.  “I’ll see you soon.” It was a hope. It was a promise.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW I'm sorry I disappeared forever. Updates are going to come much more infrequently now. I had much more free time over the holidays and it's getting eaten up now by things like working and well, mostly working. I'll try to post at least once every 5 days or something like that. This fic is coming to an end soon, but fear not, I'm turning it into a series!!
> 
> You guys are the best, thank you so much for reading and also never hesitate to bug me daily for updates. Honestly it helps.


	10. Chapter 10

Jyn turned to Iaan, who was holding an armful of gas masks. “Get rolls of bandages, soak them in isopropyl. Then help me to that vent,” she instructed, nodding at a vent at least three times her height off the ground.

He wrung his hands. “I think I should be the vent person.”

She pursed her lips and then considered the deep ache returning to her ribs. “Fine.”

They scurried into action. A dull thud vibrated through the base, rattling all the beakers and vials in cabinets like wind chimes. Jyn nodded reassuringly. “That’s supposed to happen.” Iaan still looked tense. He pushed a high table to the wall and climbed on top, his bulk causing it to creak ominously. Once on top of the table he turned to Jyn with a lost expression.

“Get the cover off the vent. We’re going to roll the bandages down the vent and light them.”

Understanding clicked in his eyes and he moved with fresh intent, easily wrenching the vent cover off. Jyn handed him the dripping bandages one roll at a time, the extra liquid impossibly cold and ticklish as it trickled down her hand and soaked into the edges of her own bandages. The cold worked to their advantage for once, keeping the isopropyl from evaporating in the vents. They stuffed dry bandages in for good measure, pushing them as far down the vent as possible. He jumped off the table, trailing a long strip of bandage down the wall.

“Good work,” Jyn said. She flicked open a lighter and brushed it to the edge of the bandage. It caught fire instantly, blue flames zipping their way into the vent. Smoke started pouring from the opening almost immediately.

She started towards the door but her shaking legs threatened to give out beneath her. Iaan was already there, looping an arm under her shoulders to keep her on her feet. He held out small earplugs to her. “You’re going to want these.”

She shook her head. “I want to hear what’s going on.”

He grimaced but didn’t argue, pocketing the earplugs. She hoisted the Lieutenant’s small blaster and they stepped out into the corridor.

The base was chaos. Stormtroopers and officers ran in both directions, a few stopping to look at them as they emerged from the med bay. Jyn made a big show of coughing. “There’s a fire somewhere in the base! Smoke is coming from everywhere!” She sputtered. As if on cue, black smoke curled out around their legs through the doorway. “We have to get out here.”

“Tell Mjaor Worden we need to evacuate!” Iaan barked at the closest officer, his soft voice transforming to a booming roar. Jyn was impressed, but not that surprised. The officer paled, shrinking under Iaan’s broad frame, and skittered away, hopefully to the Mjaor.

Another explosion sounded down the hallway around a bend. Two Stormtroopers were blasted against the wall, slumping to the ground, covered in grey duracrete dust. Six more Stormtroopers appeared, retreating backwards towards Jyn and Iaan. The zing of blaster fire pinged off the walls and several Stormtroopers dropped. The three remaining ‘troopers ran towards Jyn and Iaan, waving their arms. “Lieutenant, didn’t you get the order to evacuate? Get to the hangar!”

“Jyn!”

Everyone’s heads turned towards the source of the cry – an elated Cassian with a blaster at his shoulder, Kali at his side.

One Stormtrooper swung his blaster towards Jyn. “Hey! You’re not the Lieutenant.”

“Dammit Cassian,” Jyn muttered. She squeezed off several rounds of fire at the Stormtroopers, dropping all three in seconds. “Brilliant observation,” she growled at their bodies.

Then Cassian was at her side, tugging her loose from Iaan’s hold, sliding his arms around her waist and crushing her against his chest. The pressure of his body around hers screamed against every nerve, part torture, part ecstasy. She gasped and faltered in his arms, her legs wavering.

Cassian realized she was shaking and pulled back, but she gripped onto his shoulders for support. Her pupils nearly swallowed her multi-hued irises, leaving barely a band of amber and green visible. Her skin was almost translucent in its paleness, her lips swollen and smudged a bruised purple. He curled a hand around one side of her neck and the slip of his calloused fingers against her incredibly sensitive skin rocked her with electricity. Her eyes fluttered shut. Her skin craved his touch on every part of her body, begging him to continue. Her skin cried against the excruciating sensation, begging him to stop. Her head swam and her thoughts melted into each other. Somewhere far away, she heard Cassian speaking.

“What’s wrong with her?” Cassian asked the curly-haired medic.

“She’s gravely injured and then was given a powerful stimulant, a cocktail of synthetic chemicals meant to mimic the fight or flight response. Her body is in hyper-survival mode.”

Jyn’s eyes opened again, unfocused and almost dreamy. Cassian anchored a hand around her waist and pressed his lips against her ear. “Hold on tight, love. Please.”

She shuddered again, the lilt of his words even more enticing than usual. Hypnotic. She latched onto his voice. “Keep talking,” she gasped, fighting against the dissolving puddle of thoughts in her mind.

Cassian heard the clomp of approaching Stormtroopers and jerked his head toward the hangar. Whatever Jyn and Iaan had put in the vents was blowing black smoke everywhere. “Take her blaster,” he instructed the medic, who hesitantly plucked it from Jyn’s hands. “Where are those gas masks?”

“Iaan,” she murmured to Cassian. “His name is Iaan.”

Cassian nodded to Iaan as he handed him two gas masks. He slipped one over Jyn’s face and then his own, then half-walked, half-dragged Jyn down the hallway. She held her left arm at a funny angle, pressed against her ribs like she was trying to protect both things at once. Her left leg moved stiffly, her knee barely bending.

“I’m Captain Cassian Andor,” he said, imbuing his voice with more of a growl than usual. This elicited a lazy smile from Jyn. “Don’t scare him,” she whispered to Cassian, the sound muffled through her mask. “He’s one of us now.”

Cassian eyed the titan medic. Even though his broad hands dwarfed the blaster, making it look like a toy in his grasp, he handled it like it was a live snake, ready to turn and sink venomous fangs into him. “We’ll see about that,” he said, barely loud enough for her to hear. “Grip it tighter, hold it at chest height,” Cassian instructed Iaan, who grimaced but complied. “Don’t think, just shoot,” he added.

They blasted their way to the hangar, dropping everyone in their path. Iaan turned out to be a much better shot than Cassian anticipated, his hands remaining steady even though the rest of him shook. Cassian tossed his last grenade far down the hallway behind him, adding several Stormtrooper bodies to their wake of carnage. Iaan handed him a bottle with a bandage sticking out the top. He lit the bandage and motioned for Cassian to toss the makeshift weapon down the hallway in one smooth motion. Cassian lobbed the bottle directly at the chest of a Stormtrooper. It shattered on his amour, the isopropyl inside dripping down his chest and he was almost immediately engulfed in flames. Two other Stormtroopers stopped to help put out the fire. Cassian tossed two more of the flaming bottles onto the soldiers and they left the burning men behind them.  

They yanked off their gas masks as soon as they burst through the hangar doors. Helix was climbing out of his ship, wildly blasting Stormtroopers and officers who crouched behind cargo and ships.

“Go! Go!” Cassian hollered at everyone, not even trying to remain inconspicuous anymore. Jyn staggered against him and he caught her, cradling her in his arms as her knees buckled. If he picked her up, he’d be defenseless, relying on Kali and Iaan to cover him. But Helix crossed the hangar amazingly fast and jumped in front of Cassian, blaster up. Cassian thought he could kiss him right now. They moved as fast as possible to the ship but they still took some hits. Helix yelped when a particle beam grazed his shoulder, but he grit his teeth and kept his blaster steady, pulling off shot after shot. Cassian heard Iaan hiss and the scorching smell of a hit, but Iaan didn’t cry out.

Rookie was already in his ship, and the welcome ping of x-wing fire filled the hangar. Stormtroopers dove for cover, freeing their path up the docking ramp. They sprinted up the ramp and Helix flung himself into the pilot’s seat, his hands a blur while he started the engine. Kali slid into the copilot seat, already gripping the gunners.  

Cassian dropped into a seat, trying not to jostle Jyn too much. Her face was even more frighteningly white and her lips were turning a sickly blue. He searched out Iaan, who was digging through a side pocket of his bag.

“What’s happening?”

Iaan clenched his jaw, filling an empty syringe with a clear liquid from a vial. “The stimulant is wearing off.”

Cassian raised his eyebrows at him. “That’s not good?”

Iaan delivered his words swiftly, like reading from a report. “She’s going into shock right now. The recipient of the stimulant is not meant to survive. Too many of her neurons are firing and too rapidly. She’ll go into a seizure-like state, but ten times worse.”

Cassian’s arms tightened around Jyn and he stared at her face. “She’s going to die.” His voice was gravel.

“I made a kind of an anecdote. A mix of sedatives. But I’ve never used it for this stimulant before.”

Cassian barely hesitated. “Do it.”

Jyn’s frame shook violently.

“Lay her flat!” Iaan instructed Cassian. “Hold her head still, but lightly. Keep her from hitting it on anything.”

Cassian gently cupped her head on either side just as the ship lurched, sending items rolling across the ground.

“My bad!” shouted Helix from the cockpit. Cassian threw a glare his direction.

Iaan looked like was going to throw up. “I hate space travel,” he whispered to himself.

“Entering hyperspace!” Helix announced. The ship steadied a few seconds later and Cassian heard Helix’s loud sigh.

Iaan pressed the needle into Jyn’s neck, right on top of a blooming bruise that Cassian assumed was where the stimulant was injected.

After a few seconds, Jyn’s convulsing faded and her muscle were completely slack. Cassian carefully gathered her into his arms, resting her head against his shoulder.

“Did it work?” He couldn’t tear his eyes from her still face.

“I don’t know. We’ll know if – when she wakes up.” Iaan said. He pressed two fingers to her wrist. “Her pulse is steady. Very slow, but steady. She needs medical attention immediately. And a bacta tank. Weeks in a bacta tank.”

“She was too close to a grenade,” Cassian murmured.

Iaan nodded. “Her left side is badly burned. She’ll have permanent scars. Broken ribs. Probably internal trauma. A severe concussion.” He hesitated, holding in a breath. “The stimulant – it might actually be the only thing that kept her alive.”

Cassian didn’t move for the rest of the flight and he barely looked away from Jyn for more than a second. He kept calm by counting her breaths. Inhale – exhale. One. Inhale – exhale. Two. All the way back to Yavin 4.

“Exiting hyperspace,” Helix announced. The ship shuddered slightly as they exited and the engines whined. Cassian thought it sounded like the ship had some considerable damage. He didn’t remember getting hit. He only remembered Jyn’s white skin, her limbs twitching and shaking involuntarily as her mind struggled to stay together.

They landed and the docking ramp lowered with a hiss and a swirl of smoke and steam. Iaan hovered behind Cassian as the ship filled with field medics. Helix must have alerted them to Jyn’s condition before they landed.

Two medics attempted to pry Cassian’s arms from Jyn. “No!” He roughly shouted, heaving to his feet. “Don’t touch me!”

“She needs to go to the med bay!”

“I’ll take her,” Cassian snarled. Some part of him knew he was being utterly irrational but he thought if he let go of Jyn now, she would disappear in the flood of medics and he’d lose her again.

His arms shook, muscles slowly turning to jelly. The blaster injuries from the battle burned, pain worming deep into his limbs. Still, he walked on, stride never flagging until he reached the med bay. Iaan was half a step behind him, filling in the medics on Jyn’s condition.

Someone tried to pull Jyn from his arms again and his hand itched to reach for his blaster. He growled unintelligible words of warning at them. From the corner of his eye he registered the flash of light brown skin and then his cheek stung. He blinked, head snapping up to see Kali in front of him, glaring with the fire of ten hells burning in her eyes.

“If you don’t let go of Jyn, she’ll die. Don’t be such a fool.”

Cassian’s breaths came harsh and fast. He was being a fool. He looked to the nearest medic, who watched him warily, exchanging glances with a medic behind Cassian. He held out Jyn and the medic rushed forward, easing her onto a hover-stretcher. He immediately followed them to a small, curtained room where they prepped Jyn for a bacta tank. No one even bothered to tell him to leave and he stayed far out of the way, pressing into the curtains while he watched the medics work.

He thought he would be sick when they cut away Jyn’s gear, suit, and then layers of healing sheaths and bandages. Her left side from mid-shoulder to knee was just a mangled mass of blistered and raw burned flesh. Her left arm featured a series of deeper burns that were almost perfectly circular. He recognized the marks immediately. Acid burns. They’d tortured her. His fury reemerged and he squeezed his fingers into his palms, leaving behind four deep, red crescent marks.

Distantly, he heard the sound of alarm sirens whining. He glanced outside the curtain to see Iaan, Helix, Kali, and even Rookie watching from a distance just inside the med bay while Alliance personnel sprinted around the base behind them. Kali had Helix’s hand in a vice but from his white-knuckles he couldn’t tell who was holding whose hand.

Whatever was going on outside the med bay, it wasn’t his fight right now.

The medics carefully lowered Jyn into a heavily supported bacta tank and then filled the tank with the sickly sweet liquid. Jyn’s hair fanned out from her face, shaken loose from her hairband and her arms drifted at her sides. Backlit by the harsh med bay lighting, she looked like some kind of ethereal alien being waiting for rebirth. Cassian didn’t consider himself religious, but he mentally chanted Chirrut’s favorite mantra on behalf of Jyn. _The Force is with her, she is one with the Force._ He slumped into the nearest chair he could find and leaned against an empty bacta tank.

Mon Mothma appeared at his side with barely a sound. But he saw her white robes flicker in the corner of his eye. She laid a soft hand on his shoulder.

“The plans to the Death Star were recovered.” _That_ drew his eyes from Jyn.

“How?”

“Princess Organa and the Tantiv IV _were_ captured, but they escaped, with the help of some rather… colorful friends. The Death Star is here. They’ll fire on us before we can evacuate. We’ve scrambled the fleet.”

His blood chilled in his veins and his gaze dragged back to Jyn. “You’ll destroy it,” he said fervently.

“We hope for the best,” Mon responded. Her grip tightened briefly. They both knew what would happen if they didn’t succeed.

* * *

 

Jyn’s eyes fluttered open to a high ceiling with painfully bright lighting. It looked vaguely familiar. Sensations filtered back one by one. The soothing warmth of a heated bed beneath her, the uncomfortable prick of cold air on her face. Her whole body ached. The reason the room looked familiar hit her and chest tightened, pulling at her sore rib cage.

Hoth.

She was still on Hoth.

None of it had been real. Cassian hadn’t come. Iaan hadn’t helped her. They hadn’t escaped. Tears stung her eyes and she struggled to breathe. _Calm down, Jyn. You can still get out of this._ But the words rang empty in her heart. She stifled a groan, wrenching her stiff neck an inch to the right to get a better view. And froze. At the foot of her bed was another familiar sight. Dark hair with a scruffy cut, tousled from stress, slumped forward onto slim forearms dressed in a dark blue parka with a fur lined hood.

“Cassian,” she breathed, the word sticking in her parched throat. But he heard it. His head sprang up and his eyes immediately darted to her face. When he saw her looking back at him, his whole body lit up with a beaming smile that flooded his deep brown eyes with joy. Jyn had never seen anything so beautiful.

He was already at her shoulder, clasping her one tube-free hand in his, brushing the other against her cheek. The motion felt warm, soothing, _good._ She remembered the same touch against her skin, what felt like eons ago – a touch that left her equal parts agonized and wanting.

“Was it real?” She croaked. Cassian helped her with a few sips of water. He smoothed her hair back from her forehead, touching the hollows of her temples, tracing her cheekbones, stroking the pad of his thumb across her lip. Like he was making sure she was real. Jyn knew how he felt. She curled her fingers tighter around his.

“Yes,” he replied simply.

“Why are we on Hoth?”

He gave her a crooked smile. “The Empire found us. Mon Mothma thought they wouldn’t think to look for us someplace we’d already been.” He paused but his smile didn’t disappear, it widened. “We did it, Jyn. We destroyed the Death Star.”

She blinked at him, repeating the words in her head. “How?”

“Two droids escaped to Tatooine with the plans. And some no-name moisture farmer kid got them, somehow. Rescued Princess Leia or something like that. I guess he’s a Jedi now. Or will be soon enough.”

Jyn let out a wheezing laugh that hurt her ribs. “A Jedi. It doesn’t sound real. I wish Chirrut was here to see this.”

Cassian’s smile flagged. “I wish they all were. The Alliance gave you a medal of valor. Me also. I didn’t go to the ceremony.”

Jyn tried not to laugh again. Leave it to Cassian to skip the ceremony honoring him for helping to save the galaxy.

“I sent Kali and Helix to accept our medals for us.” He lightly frowned. “I hope they behaved. I did not think to ask Iaan.”

Now Jyn did laugh again. “Cassian, you have a habit of collecting people, you know that?”

He smiled again. “ _We_ have the habit.” He sighed. “I suppose I will give them jackets.”

Jyn make a perplexed humming sound and Cassian shook his head. “Long story.”

She looked pointedly at all the tubes connecting her to various pieces of equipment. “I’m not going anywhere. Tell me everything.”

He flashed her a playful look. “Well, Kali was almost crushed by Helix.”

Jyn’s eyebrows knitted. “Explain.”

“He has a problem.”

Cassian told her story after story until her ribs were absolutely burning. Iaan appeared before long looking a little frazzled and with a faintly worried frown that Jyn was beginning to suspect accounted for 90% of his facial expressions.

“You’re going to hurt your ribs,” he chastised her.

“Laughing is good for you,” she responded with a bright smile that was hard for him not to return. Kali and Helix weren’t far behind, both trying to barge through the door at the same time while both talking a mile a minute. Jyn couldn’t understand a word they were saying but she grinned until her face started to ache too.

“Un poco de silencio, please,” Cassian growled at them. Jyn titled her head as she watched him lecture the two. She’d never heard him speak in his native tongue before. It did funny things to her pulse. He motioned to her. “She’s trying to recover, your voices are loud enough to hurt.”

They both pressed their lips together in apology. “Sorry,” Helix squeaked. “We’re just so excited to see you awake. It’s been weeks.”

 _“Weeks??”_ Jyn screeched. Her gaze swung to Cassian. “You didn’t tell me I was out for weeks! How many weeks?!”

Cassian winced. “Almost three.”

Jyn’s head spun and she blinked at the ceiling.

“We have a committee hearing soon. Cassian refused to do it until you woke up,” Helix informed her soberly.

“What for?”

Cassian grimaced. “Disobeying direct orders to return to Yavin 4 after the battle.”

Jyn bit her lip. This was exactly the kind of foolhardy thing Senator Jebel would blow up to Death Star proportions. “Am I allowed to attend?”

Cassian shrugged. “Mon hasn’t told me if it’s closed or open yet. She would probably let you in.”

“Could you guys really get in trouble for coming back for me?”

Kali nodded gravely. “A lot of it.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, each one pondering their uncertain futures.

Jyn searched out each of their eyes in turn. “It will be okay. I know it will be.” Her gaze settled on Cassian. “The Force brought us together and it will keep us together.”

Cassian’s face filled with an adoring awe. He may have been the one who told her rebellions were built on hope, but Jyn Erso found hope where no one else could. He hoped with her, that once again, her hope was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter has Cassian and Jyn finding creative ways to stay warm on Hoth...


	11. Chapter 11

Mon Mothma did agree to let Jyn attend the hearing, scheduled for three days later. The med bay discharged her on the day of the hearing, and Cassian brought her a hover chair, but she stubbornly insisted on walking.

He was ready to complain, but he couldn’t help enjoy the feeling of having his arm around her again, whole and healthy. Mostly healthy.

“Where are we going?” She questioned as she leaned (more than she needed to) against Cassian’s side.

“Our room.”

“ _Our_?” She tried to cover her shock with a teasing tone.

He looked down at her with genuine apprehension in his eyes. “I have a private bunk. Did you want to sleep in the army barracks?”

Jyn stopped and grabbed Cassian’s collar, dragging him down for a kiss. He wound his arms around her, carefully not to squeeze too tightly on her injured ribs. He tamped down alarm at how much thinner her frame felt. Her injuries, even with the time in the bacta tank, had taken a serious toll on her body. He made a note to ask her what her favorite food was and to try and acquire it. Repeatedly.

When she pulled away his hair was mussed from her fingers and his pupils were blown wide. He felt her heart hammering against his. She laughed breathlessly. “No, I don’t want to sleep in the barracks.”

Cassian had barely closed the door to his room behind him before Jyn was pressed up against him again, slipping cool fingers around his belt, tugging up the hem of his tucked shirt. She found skin and shivered, dragging fingers through the dark trail of hair from belly button to the base of his cock. He inhaled sharply. All the thoughts he had about patiently working his way through her clothing layer by layer disappeared with Jyn’s insistent hands. He deepened the kiss, slipping his tongue into her mouth, sucking and biting at her bottom lip, relishing the way it made her eyelids flutter and her back arch beneath his hands.

She shimmied out of the rest of her clothes with some help, trying not to flinch when his hands skimmed her healing burns. Her scars. He pushed her gently back into his bed and she leaned on her elbows.

Naked, cheeks rosy, lips stained a bitten pink, she gazed at him from beneath half-lidded eyes. He felt dizzy with the rush of having her, _here_ , like this. She pulled one foot onto the bed, bending her knee with the slightest arch of an eyebrow, spreading her slit open to him. His heartbeat was deafening as he drew closer, hovering over her hips, pushing between her legs. He kissed her, butterfly light, barely touching, again and again. She tipped her head back and he moved down her jaw to her neck, over her full, round breasts, kneading their softness while his lips dipped to the curve of her hip. He wanted to taste her.

He lapped around her folds, teasing and sucking at the hot, throbbing skin. She squirmed, her hips tilting to meet his touch. He flicked the tip of his tongue to her clit, eliciting a gratifying gasp from her. He pressed deeper, gliding around in circles with a pressure that was almost too light. Every sweep of his tongue sent heat shooting through her, fanning the need growing in her middle. He reached a hand up to cup her breast, rolling a hard pink nipple between his fingers as the circles he drew grew faster. Jyn keened and he looked up at her, expecting her neck to be curved back as she lost herself in the waves of indulgent pleasure. But she was looking at him, lips parted, breaths fast and short. Her fingernails dug into the covers of his bed. Her eyes thrilled him, their banded hues the closest to a fully sepia shade in the dim lighting. She didn’t look away, her lips curling in the suggestion of a delighted smile as she watched him lick her, tongue sucking at her clit. They challenged him on, demanded more. He slipped his tongue into her hot cunt and she gasped, her whole body shuddering.

“Cassian,” she cried out, collapsing back as he resumed his circles, her words melting into moans as he pushed her over the edge of ecstasy.

His lips found hers again, his mouth and chin wet with her own desire. He rolled her gently onto her good side, curling his body around hers, running a reverent hand down her neck. When he reached the top of her healing burns, she flinched, inhaling in a way that stung him. “Does that hurt?”

She shifted to look back at him. “No. But my skin is all ruined.”

He could understand why she might feel that way about her newly acquired scars. She had several more soaks in a bacta tank ahead of her, but even after that, most of the ripples and ridges along her side would never fade. Especially the circles from the acid burns along her arm. She would carry those forever. The Empire’s mark on her very body. It made Jyn furious, even sick. Her stomach turned. But Cassian was drawing a finger along the outside of her burns like tracing paper.

“Not ruined. Proof of all your strength, turned inside out.” He brushed a fingertip along each circle. Jyn willed herself to accept the touch, closing her eyes. His hands feathered over every ridge, every divot, every suture where torn flesh had met again. Much of her burns were healing completely, leaving behind new, pink skin. Fresh and untouched. Cassian lingered over these parts too, until Jyn was once again arching into him, her moans asking for more.

She ground the curve of her ass into his pulsing erection, forcing groans from him with every twist of her hips. He’d never wanted anyone so much. There had been other people in his past, men and women he remembered wanting. But he’d never experienced a wanting like this. They were tiny candle flames held next to the sun. Barely a memory.

He slipped a hand between her thighs, damp with her wanting, lifted her hips, and guided his cock inside her. They exhaled together as he plunged into her. Cassian nibbled along her neck as he wrapped hands around her breasts and began to gently rock his hips. She reached back with her arm, sinking her fingers into the dimpled muscles of his lower back, urging him tighter, closer. The muscles rippled under her fingers with every pulse inside her body.

Jyn had been with a few other men before, but it was always empty. Two anonymous bodies, grabbing at each other in a dark place, searching for a moment of forgetfulness. The loneliness came back too quickly and they would part ways, avoiding the other’s eyes.

Cassian was with her in every way. Inside her, penetrating into her core. His smell was on her skin and his taste was in her mouth, and his hands were on her body. She wanted to see him, all of him.

She pulled away, twisting in his arms before he could ask, and hooked a leg over his hips, pulling herself astride. He glided back into her and she leaned onto his chest, circling her hips until they were both gasping. He could tell she was tiring, and her burned leg felt stiff. He settled hands around her hips, letting her lean against his strength while he rocked, thrusting in and out. She nestled her face in the curve between his neck and shoulder, whispering into his ear in her honeyed voice. “You feel so good.” She nibbled at a soft ear lobe and he moaned, the sound hot and strong next to her face. “I love having you inside me,” she purred, grinding her hips to find more friction between them. He moaned again, whispering her name. “And I love feeling you come inside me,” she murmured. Cassian gasped, his whole body shuddering and curling around hers. She ever so slightly pulsed her hips as he spurted into her. He rested a hand on her back, chest heaving. She settled around him, enjoying the warmth of his still shaking body and the feeling of him resting inside her, completed.

He kissed her, wide and hard and desperately. They crawled under the covers and she tucked herself against his side, gently entwining their legs together. “How long do we have?” She asked, a sleepy trace to her voice.

Cassian looked at the chrono, the first thing he’d put in his room on Hoth. “Two hours and 14 minutes.”

She murmured incomprehensibly, eyes fluttering shut.

He pressed soft kisses along her hairline. “Sleep, mi estrella.”

But Jyn was already descending into blissful unconsciousness, Cassian’s ariose voice following into her dreams.

They walked quietly to the hearing, Cassian’s arm looped around her waist once again. Jyn could feel Cassian’s worry in his silence and the slight downward pull of his mouth. She suspected he’d never been in this kind of trouble before.

They shuffled into the hearing room and Cassian helped her settle into a chair. He took his place in the center of the room behind a circular table Jyn felt must have been chosen purposefully for the intimidation of its design. Set into a dais that was instead sunken into the floor instead of raised, Cassian and the others would have to look up at the ring of the council members at the hearing. Jyn leaned as far forward in her seat as possible to get Cassian in full view.

Iaan slipped into the room and took the seat next to her so quietly that Jyn barely noticed, jumping when he seemingly appeared beside her. The vague worry that always covered his face was full-blown anxiety; he gripped the edge of his chair, tapping uneven rhythms into the metal. Despite his unease, Jyn was relieved Mon Mothma allowed him to the hearing. Even after several weeks, he seemed a little like a lost puppy, moving uncertainly through his new routine in the med bay, always looking around with a slightly dazed expression like he wasn’t sure how he got there or what he was supposed to do next. The only time Jyn had seen him relaxed was when he was busy with a patient, or surrounded by their team. The wrinkles in his dark skin smoothed out, replaced by different lines - of concentration and competence. Of belonging.

_Their. Our. Us._ Jyn repeated the words in her head, realizing how quickly she had come to think of Cassian, Iaan, Helix, Kali, and even Rookie as an _us._ It could all be undone today. She berated herself for getting so attached – in what universe would their ragtag team be allowed to continue working together? A quiet panic stirred in her stomach, a feeling she thought she’d steeled herself against so long ago. Past-Jyn, of even a month ago, would have laughed in her face – a bitter, derisive noise. Attachment was a weakness, it only led to heartbreak. But she didn’t really believe that anymore.

She saw Senator Jebel approaching behind several officers, and her face darkened. As soon as his face appeared at the door, Mon Mothma stepped in front of him, motioning for him to move outside. He moved barely a step back and gave her a stony glare.

“What are you doing here Senator Jebel?”

“I’m here for the hearing.”

“This is a military matter. And this is not an open hearing.”

He jabbed a finger in Jyn’s. “You let her inside,” he said, his words approaching a whine.

Jyn couldn’t see Mon’s face but she saw the way her shoulders squared with the hardness of ice under her white robes. “This matter directly concerns her.”

“This is outrageous,” the Senator blustered. “Any Senator should have access to military hearings.”

“That’s not how the chain of command works and you know it. Or do you need a reminder of who is in charge of the Rebel Alliance?” Mon Mothma’s voice took on a steel-cold edge, her words like quick slices of a blade. His face reddened with every second but he left, throwing a murderous glare over his shoulder at Jyn.

She saw Iaan surreptitiously watching the exchange.

“My biggest fan,” Jyn snorted. One edge of Iaan’s mouth twitched up.

“Some people, especially those who have been with a cause for a long time, don’t like change. They can’t accept that the world they know, the world they’re comfortable with, is growing into a new creature.”

From the distant depths of his bright grey eyes, she saw memories churning. She wondered if his words applied to both their lives. She crossed her arms. “I don’t know why he picked _me_ to channel all his anger at.”

Iaan tilted his head. “From what I hear, your arrival changed everything. The Alliance isn’t the same.”

Jyn quieted, studying the movements of the quickly crowding room while Iaan’s words soaked in. She didn’t feel like someone who’d changed the course of the Rebel cause. That kind of title belonged to someone more noble, someone without a dark past crisscrossed with scars.

Mon called the hearing to order with only a slow look around the room. A hush fell immediately as her gaze passed over them.

“We are here today to discuss the actions of the four sitting before you during their time on Hoth immediately following the order for retreat after the battle with Imperial forces. Captain Cassian Jeron Andor, please step forward.”

One by one, they recounted the mission from start to finish - everything that happened, what was said, what they did. Jyn had never been to any kind of procedural hearing, but before long the nervous tightness in the pit of her stomach shifted to numbed boredom as the council sifted through technical information such as time-stamped transmissions and flight logs.

Jyn shook herself out of her fog when Mon Mothma called the hearing committee into a closed deliberation. They seemed to take the air with them as they moved into a separate room, the click of the door closing behind them echoing in the now silent room. Very few people left their seats. Kali studied the floor with a white-knuckled grip over the edge of her chair. Helix’s legs jittered, shaking the table, until Kali’s foot shot out with a light kick to his shin. He glared at her, but his gaze held no rancor and she attempted a comforting smile back at him. Rookie shifted his arm across the back of Kali’s chair. Jyn waited for Kali to snap at him, but to her surprise, she let out a deep sigh and leaned back against his arm without so much as a sidewise look at him. Jyn’s eyes shot to Cassian. His lips barely moved in the suggestion of a smirk as he watched their exchange, before turning back to Jyn. They shared an amused look. Jyn supposed she wasn’t that surprised, she thought, as she fell headfirst into Cassian’s warm eyes. Enemies turning to lovers? It was almost predictable. Cassian’s gaze traveled thoughtfully along Jyn’s face as if he shared her thoughts.

The door creaked open and everyone straightened in their seats, heads whipping to watch Mon Mothma and the committee return to the room. Mon barely waited for them to sit before giving the verdict.

“This special hearing committee unanimously finds Captain Cassian Andor, Kali Ganga, Helix Adryn, and Marcin “Rookie” Hart, guilty of insubordination and disobeying direct orders from Alliance High Command.”

Mon sighed. “That said, I do not think the regular punishment for these wrongdoings would help the Alliance or any of you. We want to help our cause, not hinder it. You accomplished some impressive feats. Untested as a team, thrown together by circumstance, you performed admirably under battle.” Commander Pististio nodded towards them with a pleased look on his face.

“You broke into a base occupied by the enemy, helped rescue a severely injured team member, inflicted significant damage on the enemy.” Mon’s eyes flickered upwards, where scorch marks from the fire Iaan and Jyn created still decorated the ceiling and walls. “You managed to escape with everyone involved and brought back a new recruit on top of it. I would call that an excellent day’s work. Therefore, by special action of the committee, we’ve decided to channel your _energies_ into a more productive venue.”

Murmurs rippled throughout the room. Jyn looked at Cassian, wide-eyed. He seemed as perplexed as she, although no one would know it by looking at him. The barest flick of one eyebrow on an otherwise neutral face gave him away to her.

“We’ve decided to create a task force within Special Operations for the six of you, should you all decide to join.”

Helix’s hand hesitantly went up. Mon fought a smile. “Yes, Mr. Adryn.”

“Can we keep our call sign?”

“Star Scout Six? It’s rather fitting. I don’t see why not.”

 “No one has agreed to join this team yet,” Kali remarked, voice dry as always, eyes narrowed to arrow points. “Who would lead? Who would we answer to?”

“Captain Andor and First Lieutenant Erso would equally share responsibility for the team. They would answer directly to High Command.”

Jyn’s mouth parted and Iaan grinned at her. Apparently she had been promoted and no one had bothered to tell her. Mon looked Jyn’s way with a smile in her eyes.

Rookie spoke up. “Would I stop flying with my starfighter squad?”

“Only when you are engaged in a mission.”

Cassian broke eye contact with Jyn to ask Mon a single question. “Why?”

She regarded him thoughtfully. “The Rebel Alliance has moved to a new stage. Scarif changed things. The battle at Yavin changed things. We started a war. A true war. While we can no longer be a clandestine organization always sneaking around beneath the nose of the Empire, the era of the spy, the sabeteur, and the assassin are not over.”

The edges of Cassian’s mouth hardened at her words and his gaze dropped to the floor.

“We will ask you to be all those things, and more. But we ask you to do them together. I will no longer ask one individual to commit our darkest deeds and then carry it with them, alone.”

Cassian’s eyes rose again, shining softly. Jyn watched him with held breath.

“And more?” Kali questioned, the hard edge in her voice gone. “What’s ‘and more?’”

“Overseeing emergency relief to areas left in tatters by the Empire. Becoming the catalyst in a zone ready to explode into rebellion against the Empire. Rescue missions. Disrupting covert Imperial projects. Whatever we need. You’re a diverse group. You’ve proved capable of being resourceful and working harmoniously with no previous experience together.”

Helix glanced sidewise at Rookie, who was staring at Kali with a furrowed brow. Kali was chewing her lip and missed both of their expressions. “Harmonious” wasn’t exactly the word she would pick to describe them, but she wasn’t about to correct Mon Mothma.

Kali questioned again. “So are we a Mission Group or a Special Ops Team?”

“Neither,” Mon answered succinctly. “You will be something new, something that falls between the carefully controlled Mission Groups and the chaotic force of a Special Ops Team.”

“Not spooks and not specters,” Rookie murmured to Kali with a smirk.

“Poltergeists?” Kali responded slyly.

Iaan gently cleared his throat. All eyes swung to him and he froze, petrified. Jyn laid an encouraging hand on his arm. “We don’t really fit in that scout ship.”

One side of Mon’s mouth quirked up. “We’ll look into exchanging your ship for one more fitting to your new roles.”

Helix, Kali, and Rookie looked to Cassian. Cassian looked at Jyn. She gave him one deliberate nod.

Cassian’s voice rang out, clear and steady. “We fight.”

Helix whooped, jumping to his feet. He threw his arms around Mon Mothma, who rocked on her heels in shock before patting his back with an amused smile. Iaan practically lifted Jyn off the ground as he helped her to the rest of the group. Cassian was at her side in an instant, his arms around her waist. He didn’t say anything as he pressed his face into her neck and he didn’t need to. Jyn’s chest felt like it would expand until it burst. The rest gathered around them with shining faces. Jyn grinned at them all and then looked over Helix’s shoulder at Mon.

“So what’s our first mission?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end!!!
> 
> Thank you to all my sweet, dear readers who came back for every chapter and left me such encouraging comments. Writers live for comments. I don't know if this will ever become a series - I have some other writing projects that I need to wrap up (and focus on my own book and stop starting new fanfics, haha!). But I am soooo grateful for the love this one got!! It was a blast to write. Everyone go buy Rogue One when it's out and continue to show it love! Thank you thank you thank you :) :)

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone on tumblr, I'll be posting chapter updates @thisisjustridiculous :) :)


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